Come September’ will be a sweet tune for the Jeevanji family in Kalleda, Parvathagiri mandal of Warangal district of Telangana State.
It’s ‘Double Whammy’, with Deepthi Jeevanji, the daughter winning a bronze medal at Paris Paralympics on September 3 in athletics. On September 27, Deepthi’s birthday will be celebrated with more joy than ever before in her hometown.
The ‘cognitively challenged’, 20-year-old, para-athlete, Deepthi Jeevanji ran the race of her life in the women’s 400 metre, T20 classification final at the Stade de France in Paris on September 3 to bring laurels to her country in the Paris Paralympics. It is India’s second medal in athletics at the ongoing games.
Deepthi’s rise to stand proudly on the Olympic podium has been nothing short of meteoric, especially in 2024. At the games, she clocked 55.82 seconds behind the winner from Ukraine’s Yulia Shuliar (55.16 secs) and Turkiye’s Ayser Onder (55.23 secs) respectively.
Born into an underprivileged family and subjected to taunts and comments on her disability, Deepthi grew up with a steely resolve to achieve something. From birth, Deepthi was handicapped in communication and adaptive skills. She also had a cleft lip and an underdeveloped nose and head.
But, her talent lay in running. She would stride past her friends in playful races with ease. This unique gift was spotted at the Rural Development Foundation (RDF) School in the village by the Physical Education teacher Biyani Venkateshwarlu.
He convinced the RDF owner to help Deepthi hone her talent by supporting her through training. Soon, she was made to run the 100 m and 200 m races at the inter-school level. The timely interventions changed the life of the young girl, who was born in 2003.
Her parents—Jeevanji Yadagiri and Dhanalaxmi work as daily wage labourers to eke out a living. “She was born during the solar eclipse and her head was very small at birth along with the lips and nose being a bit unusual. Every villager who saw her and some of our relatives would call Deepthi pichi (mental) and kothi (monkey) and tell us to send her to an orphanage. Today, seeing her become the world champion in a far-off country proves that she is indeed a special girl,” Jeevanji Dhanalaxmi, Deepthi’s mother, told The Indian Express in May.
Impressive achiever
During the run up to the Olympics Deepthi broke several records in the 400 m T 20 sprint. At the Para Athletic World Championship held in Kobe, Japan on May 20, she set a world record with a timing of 55.06 seconds. She broke the record of 55.12 seconds held by the American Breanna Clark.
Earlier, Deepthi Jeevanji was selected for the Indian team that took part in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Para Games, where she won the gold medal with a new Asian Para record and the Games record on 24 October 2023. She clocked a record time of 56.69s to take the gold.
In the previous year, she had also secured two Gold medals in the 400 m run and 200 m run at Virtus Oceania Asia Games 2022, in Brisbane, Australia.
Fast learner
Though Deepthi put in a lot of hard work, her cognitive disability sometimes interfered and pushed her into unintentionally run in a different lane.
A chance meeting with N Ramesh, a Dronacharya awardee coach in a state meet at Khammam in 2019 changed her forever. The 16-year-old learnt fast under the SAI coach (Sports Authority of India) running on synthetic track, sticking to her lane and improving strength and speed.
In her transformation into an international level para athlete several people played an important role, extending support in various ways. National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand through the Gopichand-Mytrah Foundation, Defence Scientist, Y Srinivasa Rao and the head of an Infotech company in Hyderabad.
Deepthi started attracting national attention from 2019 itself when she won a silver medal at the 3rd Asian Youth Athletics Championships in Hong Kong in the medley relay race. She also won the bronze in the 200 m run.
Her first gold at the international level came in the World Para Athletic Grand Prix in Morocco in September 2022 in the 400 m T20 with a timing of 57.66 sec.
After that, there has been no looking back in the career of Deepthi Jeevanji, who is set to scale greater heights given her grit, determination and talent.
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