Amidst PV Sindhu's victory at BWF, Manasi Joshi is another 'Golden Girl' of India

Currently the World Number 2 in SL3 Singles, Manasi Joshi won the gold medal at the BWF Para-Badminton Championships on Aug 24

When the world was busy praising the bravery of Indian shuttler PV Sindhu for becoming the first Indian to win gold at BWF Championship, there was someone else who won the hearts too. Currently the World Number 2 in SL3 Singles, Manasi Joshi won a gold medal at the BWF Para-Badminton Championships on Saturday, August 24 by beating the three-time world champion Parul Parmar in the women's singles.

This victory for the 30-year-old shuttler came as a really sweet one as she had lost to Parul Parmar thrice in one year but emerged victorious to win gold for the country. There are a total of six categories that classify the status of a player under Para-Badminton. The six classes are divided depending on the type and severity of impairment that the player has.

The classifications are:

WH1 (Wheelchair/ severe impairment)

WH2 (Wheelchair/minor impairment)

SL3 (Standing/lower limb impairment/minor)

SL4 (Standing/ lower limb impairment/severe)

SU5 (Standing/upper limb impairment)

SS6 (Standing/short stature)

Who is Manasi Joshi?

Little did we all know about her, Manasi was just six when she started playing badminton and was accompanied by her father for the everyday play. Her father is a retired scientist from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. She has completed her graduation in Electronics Engineering from KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai in 2010. Becoming a badminton player was never her ambition but life took a different turn for her and she met with a very serious accident in 2011 in which she lost her left leg. And it was not just the leg injury, she broke her arms along with other many injuries in the accident.

It was a long shot for her after she met with that tragic accident. And in order to keep out the spread of gangrene, the doctor decided to amputate her leg. But all she wanted was to stand up again and live the life like a normal human being.

She took a desk job at a company and started playing badminton again with an aim to just stay fit in the condition she was. But she was unknown of the fact that gradually her only motive to stay fir became her passion and she thought of taking up it was a profession.

PV Sindhu's win overshadowed Para-Badminton BWF

Just a day before, when PV Sindhu was awarded the gold medal, Manasi Joshi already made India proud by keeping up the tri-color above all the other nations at BWF Championships. We all saw the world hailing Sindhu's efforts and no doubt she deserved every bit of it. Also, she got a chance to meet the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. And not only this, her brand fee got doubled to Rs 3 crore and she got tremendous attention from media as well.

And in all this process Manasi Joshi's victory was completely overshadowed. And to make it more, it was not just Manasi who won the medal, in fact, the Indian contingent of para-badminton players together bagged 12 medals at the BWF Championships.

Need to promote the other side as well

The people who have such abilities and still stand up by gathering all of their will and courage are really brave people, and they need to be appreciated. The appreciation should not be for what they are, but for what they have done. Just like PV Sindhu has made the country proud, Manasi Joshi has made us proud too, and to be very honest, the win was not at all easy for her but she made through it.

Even if you search on YouTube, you will find a full video of Sindhu's BWF finals match, but there is no video of Manasi Joshi's finals game. Somehow, there's a huge gap about the Para-Games that we need to bridge. All of us knew that BWF Championship was going to take place, but the majority of us were unaware of the Para-Badminton BWG Championships were happening at the same time.

Phulella Gopichand who trained PV Sindhu has also been coaching Manasi Joshi from quite a long time now. He even chalked out a special training program for the 30-year-old so that it can be a perfect fit according to her ability and enhance the existing ones. But no one knew about it until the duo was interviewed recently.

In a country, where the only sport that people follow and literally pray is cricket, a game like badminton is gaining popularity just because the players have now started to bring in the accolades for the nation. And not only the regular Badminton team but the para-badminton team has also done a job that cannot be counted any lesser.

There is a need to promote this side of the sport as well and for that, the Sports Authority of Indian needs to take certain measured so that the people will start following it. Though PM Modi congratulated the whole team of para-badminton for winning 12 medals at the tournament, it would have been felt better to everyone if Manasi Joshi would have received more applauds which she actually deserves. But we all have got the time and we can still make things right which were gone wrong and congratulate Manasi Joshi for conquering the best of both world.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are the personal views of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)