Preethi Pal (born 22 September 2000) is an Indian para athlete. She won two bronze medals at the 2024 Paris Paralympics in the women's 100m and 200m T35 race events and created history by becoming the first Indian woman to win two medals in track and field events at

Paralympic Games The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disability, disabilities. There are Winter Paralympic Games, Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 ...

Early life

Pal is from

Meerut Meerut (, ISO 15919, ISO: ''Mēraṭh'') is a city in the western region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Located in the Meerut district, it is northeast of the national capital, New Delhi, and is ...

, Uttar Pradesh. She had cerebral palsy during her childhood, and she could not get proper treatment at Meerut. She trains in Delhi under coach Gajendra Singh, who is also the coach of Simran Sharma.

Career

In May 2024, she won a bronze at the

World Para Athletics Championships The World Para Athletics Championships, known as the IPC Athletics World Championships prior to 2017, are a biennial Paralympic athletics event organized by World Para Athletics, a subcommittee of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). It ...

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

, Japan, and clinched an Olympic quota, clocking 30.49 sec in the women's T35 200m event. She missed a medal twice by a close margin at the

2022 Asian Para Games The 2022 Asian Para Games (), also known as the 4th Asian Para Games and commonly known as the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Para Games, were a multi-sport event that paralleled the 2022 Asian Games which was held for Asian athletes with disa ...

Hangzhou, China Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counties ...

. Earlier in March 2024, she won two gold in the domestic 6th Indian Open Para Athletics Championships at

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

. In 2024, she qualified to represent

India at the 2024 Summer Paralympics India competed at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris from 28 August to 8 September 2024. The nation made its official debut at the 1968 Summer Paralympics and has appeared in every edition of the Summer Paralympics since 1984. This was India's ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and won a bronze medal in the women’s 100m T35 class. She clocked a personal best time of 14.21 seconds.

Award

Arjuna Award The Arjuna Award, officially known as Arjuna Awards given for Outstanding Performance in Sports and Games, is the second-highest sporting honour of India, the highest being the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The award is named after Arjun ...

2024

References

External links

Preethi Pal
at the

Paris 2024 Summer Paralympics The 2024 Summer Paralympics (), also known as the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games (), and branded as Paris 2024, were the 17th Summer Paralympic Games, an international Multi-sport event, multi-sport parasports event governed by the International P ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pal, Preethi 2000 births Living people Indian female sprinters Paralympic athletes for India Paralympic bronze medalists for India Paralympic medalists in athletics (track and field) Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2024 Summer Paralympics Athletes from Uttar Pradesh Sportswomen from Uttar Pradesh Recipients of the Arjuna Award