Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

September 16, 2019

Met Kumar Manikandan, India’s Paralympic climbing champion yesterday

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 11:07 AM

Yesterday I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Kumar Manikandan, India’s Paralympic climbing champion. Mani has won 18 global medals: 5 gold,10 silver and 3 bronze medals – highest in the history of sport climbing in India and is the first and only sports climbing champion from India. He received the coveted Tenzing Norgay award from the President last month and has represented India in 5 world championships. We spent quite some time talking and it was humbling to see what can be achieved when you have focus and determination at your side. In addition to competing in international events he is also coaching 2 students who qualified for the national level last week. You could see the pride in his face when he was talking about his students but when it came to his own accomplishments he was remarkably humble and matter of fact.

The main issue with the sport that I see after talking to him is that the is not enough exposure or media coverage on these athletes, I mean these are folks who are consistently representing India on a global forum and winning but hardly anyone knows about them. I am sorry to say that even I didn’t know about his accomplishments before yesterday.


Me and Jani with Kumar Manikandan, India’s Paralympic climbing champion

We need to encourage more kids to take part in sports other than Cricket. There is a whole world out there and we have the talent to win it, just need the encouragement and resources for these folks to compete.

– Suramya

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