By Archana Sharma
Jaipur, May 4 (IANS) This is the story of a man who lost his two hands in two different accidents, however, never gave in to the challenges but continued working hard to emerge as a winner in swimming on the national platform and setting his eyes on the Asian Championship to be held in 2022 in Hangzhou.
Learning to balance his life amid odds, he started learning to balance his body amid ‘troubled waters’ and now has over 150 medals won in different national and international tournaments.
In fact, he is also training young students in his academy who too have won over 100 medals in different tourneys.
He is now aiming to win a gold medal in the Asian Championship to be held in 2022 in Hangzhou.
The sportstar is Pintu Gehlot, a resident of Chokha village in Jodhpur in Rajasthan, who lost one hand during an accident in 1998 when he was a class VI student. A bus accident claimed his right hand from the shoulder itself. However, he trusted his left hand and tried to write his success story with it.
With a firm determination, he stepped into the swimming pool and made a mark for himself by training himself to emerge as an ace swimmer.
After seven years of hard work, he won the state para championship held in Jodhpur.
He won a gold medal in the 100 meter backstroke and silver medal in the 50 metre freestyle tournament, There was no looking back since then.
However, Pintu received another cruel knock in life when he lost his other hand in 2019 while cleaning a swimming pool.
There was an electric current which passed to the iron pipe across the pool which was being cleaned by Pintu at that time. His hand had to be cut off, it was damaged so badly.
His father Omprakash Gehlot also lost one hand in a 2019 accident.
But Pintu, it seemed, was made of iron as he did not get discouraged and continued with his passion — swimming.
He is presently connected with the Rajasthan Para swimming team as a coach and is training many young talents.
He has started a swimming centre where he is training physically challenged people free of cost.
Many of his students have also been earning laurels for the state, having collected over 100 medals in different tournaments.
Pintu says that his ultimate aim is to participate in the Para Olympics and make a mark there. “I am trying to perform the best in the world class tournament,” he says.
He recently won a bronze medal in the Para National Swimming Championship held in Bengaluru in March this year and is now busy making efforts to gather around Rs 12 lakh for his training in India and abroad for the Asian Championship.
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