Tokyo Paralympics: Discus thrower Yogesh Kathuniya wins silver for India in close contest

Yogesh Kathuniya has won silver for India in the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics 2020 Men's Discus Throw Final event in the F56 category on Monday and by the virtue of this win, Yogesh had brought India's third silver medal in this edition of the Paralympic Games which has taken the country's tally to four medals.

Tokyo Paralympics 2020: Discus thrower Yogesh Kathuniya wins silver for India

Yogesh Kathuniya stood at the first position after three athletes completed the throws. He threw 42.84, 43.55, 44.38 in his six attempts with his best being 44.38. Meanwhile, Yogesh Kathuniya's second attempt 42.84 is a new season-best as well.

However, Yogesh's sixth attempt of 44.38m was just short of his personal best of 44.47m. But, the Indian discus thrower was still at the top of the leaderboard as his competitors tried their level best to surpass his record. Yogesh's gold medal hopes depended on the performances of his rivals in their remaining attempts and one of the athletes did make manage to make an impact and it was Cuba's Leonardo Aldana Diaz who somewhat came close with a best throw of 43.36 in his third attempt that took him to the second position. While the Cuba discus thrower attempted to dethrone Yogesh Kathuniya from the gold medal race, he could not succeed in doing so as Kathuniya still led after five out of eight competitors finished their throws as he breached his own personal best thrice.

Even though Diaz did look forward to topping the leaderboard, Yogesh Kathuniya consolidated the top spot and at one point had assured India of an elusive gold medal. However, he slipped to the second spot towards the end of the competition when Brazil's Claudiney Santos surpassed him with the best throw of 44.47 as Yogesh slipped into the silver position

Tokyo Paralympics 2020: Yogesh Kathunia's Discus Throw career

Yogesh Kathuniya had created a world record during his first-ever outing in an international discus throw competition at the Para-athletics Grand Prix in Berlin, Germany 2018. In that tournament, Kathuniya had thrown 45.18m which was more than two meters than his Chinese counterpart Cuiqing Li's then world record of 42.96 that he had set in 2017.