Pune's special children make nation proud

PUNE: All seven participants from the city won medals at the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles.
With an impressive haul of 173 medals, India occupied third position (US first, China second) in the medals tally. The special children from Pune, who returned home last week, won 10 medals for the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted congratulating the commendable performance of the Indian contingent.The tweet read: "Achievements of Indian contingent at @LA2015 @SpecialOlympics are truly gladdening. They are India's pride."
The children from Pune were selected for the special games for badminton, volleyball, basketball, cycling, roller-skating, football and aquatics and won one gold, two silver and six bronze medals. "The city's representation at the event this year was good and we are proud of every participant's performance," said Minetta Paatil, executive officer, Bal Kalyan Sanstha, which worked with the students during training and selection.
In badminton, Sachin Sharma (16) won gold in the singles category, one silver in doubles and one bronze in the mixed doubles event; Devendra Sunil Dengale (21) won a silver in roller-skating and also won a bronze; Bharat Patil (22) won bronze in 500 meters and 1,000 meters cycling; Sanyukta Gosawi (18) helped the Indian girls basketball team win bronze; Nisha Chintole (26) and Varsha Nagral (21) were part of the volleyball team that won a bronze.
Varsha Nagral's mother, Kalpana, struggled for words as she expressed her joy at the turn of events. "This is a great experience for Varsha and she is the first person in our family to travel out of India. When she showed signs of low IQ, we were worried, but we pushed her to focus on sports, which she loved. Her year-long training has yielded results," said Kalpana.
From Maharashtra, 23 children and adults participated in the Los Angeles games. Three from Nagpur, 10 from Mumbai, two brothers from Latur and one from Kolhapur were part of the Indian contingent.
Kolhapur lad Avdhut Ghorpade (20) won a gold and silver in power-lifting. Sandra Vaz, area director, Maharashtra - special Olympics, said, "It was Maharashtra's best representation at the special Olympics this year and the children have performed exceptionally well. It was the first time softball was introduced and I can say with pride that children from the state i.e. Manoj Naik from Nagpur, Mihir Soni and Vipul Jain from Mumbai were part of the team that won gold."
"The children are beaming with pride and are very happy. However, they do not have any vanity or competitiveness," said Abhijit Tambe, Indian team's aquatics coach in-charge. "These children are exceptional in a way that they enjoy life's moments irrespective of a loss or a win," he said.
Managing a team of special children is not a easy task, but the coaches looked after them like family, said Tambe, who has been training special children for over 20 years. "It was a sight to behold, as during the competitions, all coaches and spectators cheered for all the competitors, irrespective of their nationalities."
The training of these children included not only polishing their game during the course of one year and four training camps, but also with specially-designed meals, meditation sessions and regular exercises.
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In numbers
275 participants from India at the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles
Seven from Pune; one from Kolhapur; two from Latur; three from Nagpur and 10 from Mumbai. Maharashtra's total representation: 23
The India team won 173 medals (47 gold, 54 silver and 72 bronze)
Pune lads won one gold, two silver and six bronze medals
About the games
Total 6,500 athletes, trained by 2,500 coaches, from 165 countries participated in the nine-day event
Total events: 12 (Cycling, roller-skating, power-lifting, golf, badminton, table tennis, aquatics, volleyball, football, athletics, softball and bocce)
Softball played for the first time