With only a week to go for the Paralympics in Tokyo, it is important to look at one of the most fascinating performances by an Indian in the Paralympics. The 1984 Summer Paralympics were held in two locations. Competitions for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries were held at Stoke Mandeville, UK, while wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and Les Autres were competing at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.

Joginder Singh Bedi is not widely known in India, but he is the only Indian to win multiple medals in a single edition of the paralympic games. He achieved this herculean effort in the 1984 Paralympic Games held in Stoke Mandeville/New York. He bagged the Silver medal in Men's Shot Put L6, Bronze in Men's Javelin L6 and Men's Discus Throw L6. He is the most successful Indian athlete in the Paralympic with three medals overall. What is astonishing is that it happened 37 years ago when the infrastructure and sports development in the field of paralympics was even worse than it is today. These records might be broken this year or in the coming years but the benchmark was set early on by the man. What is sad is that there is not much information or images of Joginder as there are only a few lines about him winning three medals.

Also read: Medal winning performances by Indians at the Paralympic Games

The name needs to be celebrated as there are only a handful of athletes who can reach similar levels of accomplishment. Every athlete needs support from the government and media attention to achieve further heights in the field. This year we are sending in a record 54 members to Tokyo and our best performance came in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Paralympics.