On Monday, September 2, India’s badminton player,Nitesh Kumar of India won a gold medal in the men’s singles SL3 badminton tournament at the Paris Paralympics. In an exciting 3 game match, Nitesh defeated Daniel Bethell from Great Britain by 21-14, 18-21 and 23-21. It was a thrilling match between the top two players as they fought to take in the sideways drift on the La Chapelle Arena Court 1. Despite having faced Bethell nine times in his career, Nitesh had never defeated him.
Nitish’s medal is the 9th medal at the Paris Paralympics for India and the second gold medal of the event. Shooter Avani Lekhara had won the gold medal. Thanks to Nitesh’s remarkable patience, India won its first badminton medal at the tournament. His first match against Bethell was marked by continuous rallies. In the first match, He defeated Bethell bh 21-14. During that game, the longest rally of the match was 122 shots. The first match took a total of 31 minutes to wrap up, which left both players tired and out of breath.
After that both players changed their game play to fast exchanges and Nitesh maintained his poise to win the gold medal. Even though he was under pressure for Bethell, he did not appear alarmed. Nitesh used his powerful smashes to cause the British player into making mistakes.
