3 State contestants with cerebral palsy win medals in Boccia sport

CHENNAI: Three candidates with cerebral palsy (CP) from TN have won various medals at the Boccia, a paralympic national championship at Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, recently.

Boccia is a paralympic sport introduced in 1984. Athletes throw, kick or use a ramp to propel a ball onto the court to get a ‘jack’ ball. It is designed specifically for athletes with locomotor disability.

R Lakshmi Prabha from Chennai won gold medal in the female individual category, followed by Sabana Barveen from Tiruchy bagged two medals – gold and bronze in team category, and female individual category, respectively, and Vinod Kumar from Salem won silver medals in male individual and under team categories.

Speaking to DT Next, Lakshmi’s mother Kalaivani said, “She had been practicing for boccia for six years. I’m proud of her as this is the second gold medal she has won besides the first gold medal at Jalandhar in 2019.”

Vinod and two other participants with CP, who took part in the event, were part of the Cerebral Palsy Sports Association of Tamil Nadu.

Overall, as 8 players participated from the State.

Meanwhile, these players who proved their prowess at the championship were trained with Ektha, a Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO), which besides many other issues, also works on allowing the disabled to participate in sports. “We’ve been developing a paralympic sport of boccia that can be played by anyone, with or without a disability. Originally designed for people with severe CP, it’s now enjoyed by players with a wide variety of disabilities using wheelchairs,” said Sathish Kumar, a boccia programme developer with Ektha. “Our goal is to bring the disabled out of the confines of their homes, train them for boccia and send them to national and international events.”

Ektha has so far reached 1,000 disabled people in several districts of the State, along with camps in Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kerala and Puducherry.