Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj, current district magistrate of Noida, has become the first IAS officer to win Paralympics medal.

• He ended his campaign with the winning of historic silver.
• He lost gold to top seed Lucas Mazur of France in the men’s singles SL4 class final at the Tokyo Paralympics on September 5.
• Mazur has also won three gold medals in European Championships, in the qualifying group A match. But India made a tremendous effort in the final to challenge him.

• Suhas has an impairment in one of his ankles.
• He produced an entertaining performance of 21-15, 17-21, 15-21 against the two-time world champion Mazur in a 62-minute summit clash.
• He also became the first-ever IAS officer to win a medal at the Paralympics.

In the semi-final match, Suhas has outwitted Fredy Setiawan of Indonesia by 21-9 ,21-15.

Suhas is a computer engineer who went on to become an IAS officer. He has been posted as a district magistrate of Noida since 2020. This role saw him at the forefront of the fight against ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, he has won gold medals at BWF Turkish Para badminton championship in men’s singles as well as in men’s doubles. In 2016, he won gold at Asia championships while in 2018, he won bronze in Asian Para Games.

India made its first appearance at the Paralympics in 1968. In total, India had won 12 medals till 2016 Rio edition. India now improved upon the entire number by 7 medals at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics alone. India have finished at 24th position out of 162 nations in terms of overall medal tally.

By: Brijesh Kumar