Shuttler Anika achieves rare feat, clinches three gold in Deaflympics

New Delhi: While the country is rejoicing its badminton team’s historic Thomas Cup triumph in Bangkok, J Jerlin Anika is another Indian shuttler who has been making waves with her unprecedented gold-medal winning feat in Deaflympics in Brazil.

The 18-year-old hearing-impaired shuttler from Madurai also achieved something unique — three gold medals at the 24th Summer Deaflympics at Caxias do Sul in Brazil, just a few days before the Indian men’s team dethroned Indonesia to become the Thomas Cup champions. Anika secured a gold each in women’s singles, mixed doubles and mixed team event.

Three gold medals is a huge achievement in any sport or tournament but not for Jerlin as she rued missing out of a fourth gold on offer. “She is not happy as she missed out on the women’s doubles gold. She hates losing and when we were leaving Brazil, she asked me why people are congratulating me, I could not return with all the four golds,” J Jeya Ratchagen, Anika’s father, told.

Anika beat Australia’s K Neudolt for the singles gold medal, while in the mixed doubles event, she and Abhinav Sharma clinched the yellow metal by getting the better of Malaysia’s Edmund Seng Keong Teo and Wei Ying Boon. She also played a crucial role in India beating Japan 3-1 to win the mixed team gold medal.

The road to success wasn’t an easy one for Anika and it was her dotting father who ensured that she has a normal childhood after he realised that she can’t hear or speak.
Badminton opened up doors as she started showing interest in the sport after Jeya Ratchagen used to take her with him to a local club where he used to play along with his friends. “She started training under coach P Saravanan at Bose academy in Madurai as an 8-year-old. He used to train with the normal kids but after seeing her, he started learning ways to communicate with her,” Jeya Ratchagan, who is into small scale business, said. Anika’s mother is just a house wife.

While Olympics and Paralympics are quite popular, Jeya Ratchagen wasn’t aware of Deaflympics and it was during a local tournament in 2017 that an official from Madurai district administration told him about it and that’s how her journey towards glory started.

Soon, Anika, as a 13-year-old, secured fifth place as the youngest player in her maiden appearance at 2017 Deaflympics in Turkey and went on to win two silver and a bronze at Asia Pacific Badminton Championship in 2018 in Malaysia.

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