15-year-old from Trichy wins 3 gold medals in Tamil Nadu Deaf Meet!
15-year-old Manikandan is a rising star in the field of para sports! This young lad, whose parents are farm labourers, has won three gold medals at the recent Tamil Nadu Deaf Junior Sports Meet.
For Manikandan, the win was a breeze given that he is already a national champion among deaf athletes in the 100m, 200m, high jump, and sprint categories. He is looking forward to showing his skills at the World Deaf Youth Games in Armenia in 2019.
His talents were recognised and fine-tuned thanks to N Ramesh Babu, a state government employee, who is hard of hearing. Babu accompanies Manikandan at every sports meet as an unofficial coach.
Ramesh Babu, who is a member of the Deaf Association in Trichy was approached by the boy’s parents a few years ago. They asked him to help develop his sports talent and Babu was more than happy to help.
He used his funds to get Manikandan admitted to a government school that had good facilities for athletics training. Every time there is a sports meet in Tamil Nadu, Babu takes casual leave and goes along with Manikandan. The only time he could was for the national meet in Jharkhand last year, when he became the national champ.
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