Avani Lekhara

Avani Lekhara

Lekhara in 2022

Personal information

Full name

Avani Lekhara

Born

8 November 2001 (age 22)
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Height

5 ft 3 in (160 cm)

Sport

Country

India

Sport

Shooting

Event

Air Rifle SH1

Achievements and titles

Paralympic finals

2020 Summer Paralympics: 10m air rifle standing SH1 – Gold

Medal record

Representing India

Women's shooting
Paralympic Games
	2020 Tokyo	10m air rifle SH1
	2020 Tokyo	50m rifle 3 positions SH1
World Cup
	2022 France	10m air rifle SH1
	2022 France	50m rifle 3 positions SH1
	2022 South Korea	10m air rifle SH1
Asian Para Games
	2022 Hangzhou	10 m air rifle

Avani Lekhara (born 8 November 2001 in Jaipur) is an Indian Paralympian and rifle shooter from Rajasthan.^[1] She won a gold medal in the 10m air rifle standing and a bronze medal in the 50m rifle 3 positions at the 2020 Summer Paralympics. As of January 2023^[update], Lekhara is ranked world no. 1 in Women's 10m Air Rifle standing SH1 (World Shooting Para Sport Rankings)^[2] and has competed in the 2018 Asian Para Games.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6] She has been supported by GoSports Foundation through the Para Champions Programme.^[7] She is also the first Indian woman to win multiple medals in a single Paralympic Games.^[8] She has been given out of turn appointment as Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) by the Government of Rajasthan.^[9]

YouTube Encyclopedic

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Transcription

Career

Lekhara is the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold medal.^[10]^[11]^[12] Lekhara also won India's first gold medal at the 2020 Summer Paralympics. With a score of 249.6 points in the final event, the young shooter set a Paralympic record and tied the world record.^[13] She began shooting in 2015, inspired by former Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and has since won several national and international titles.^[14] On 3 September 2021, she became the first Indian female Paralympian to win two medals in Paralympics history after claiming bronze in women's 50m air rifle standing event.^[15]^[16]

Personal life

A car accident in 2012, at the age of 11, left her with complete paraplegia. Her father encouraged her to join sports, training in archery but moving to shooting in which she found her true passion. She currently studies law in Rajasthan University, India.^[17]^[18] She was student of Kendriya Vidyalaya 3 (Jaipur), where she received her first gold medal in regional match of shooting.^[19]

In popular culture

Avani has appeared in the Kalki presents 'My Indian Life' for young Indian adults in the twenty-first century examined by Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin. True stories from India, sometimes brutal, sometimes inspiring. The BBC World Service broadcasts the programme.^[20]

Awards

2021 – Khel Ratna Award, highest sporting honour of India.^[21]
2021 - Young Indian of the Year - GQ India
2021 - Vogue Women of the Year - Vogue Magazine
2021 - Best Female Debut - Paralympic Awards - International Paralympic Committee
2022 - Padma Shri^[22]
2022 - FICCI FLO Award for Excellence in Sports
2022 - She - Age Award by Hindustan Times
2022 - Para Athlete of the Year (Female) - Sportstar
2022 - BBC India Change Maker Of The Year 2021
2022 - BRICS CCI WE - Trailblazer 2022

References

^ PTI. "Indians win four gold to begin Para Asian Games campaign in style". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
^ "World Shooting Para Sport Rankings / Official World Rankings 2023". World Shooting Para Sport.
^ "Para shooter Avani Lekhara clinches silver; India stay in top three". Indian Express News.
^ "Avani Lekhara". The Bridge News.
^ "Para World Cup: Teenage shooter Avani Lekhara wins 10m air rifle silver". Time of India News.
^ "Avani Lekhara wins women's 10m air rifle silver medal at World Shooting Para Sport World Cup". Firstpost News.
^ "Improvise, adapt, overcome: Indian para athletes' mantra for beating lockdown". ESPN. 19 April 2020. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
^ "Avani Lekhara becomes first Indian woman to win multiple medals at Paralympics". ESPN. 3 September 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
^ "News Detail". dipr.rajasthan.gov.in. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
^ "Truly special moment: India celebrates Avani Lekhara, the golden girl at Tokyo Paralympics". India Today. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
^ "Shooter Avani Lekhara becomes first Indian woman to win gold at Paralympics". The Hindu. Press Trust of India. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
^ Haq, Sana Noor. "Avani Lekhara becomes first Indian woman to win Paralympic gold". CNN. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
^ "Shooting athlete Avani Lekhara enters history books with gold". International Paralympic Committee. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
^ "India's first woman Paralympic gold medallist Avani Lekhara inspired by Abhinav Bindra's autobiography". The Indian Express. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
^ Peter, Naveen (3 September 2021). "Shooter Avani Lekhara scripts history, becomes first Indian woman to win two Paralympics medals". Olympics.com. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
^ "Avani Lekhara becomes first Indian woman to win 2 Paralympic medals". The Times of India. 3 September 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
^ "Avani Lekhara: Golden girl from Pink City". The Indian Express. 9 October 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
^ "Tokyo Paralympic 2020: Avani Lekhara wins historic gold for India in shooting". BBC News. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
^ Kartik, RJ (7 October 2021). "Avani Lekhara Interview". YouTube. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022. Retrieved 17 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ "BBC World Service - Kalki Presents: My Indian Life, Bullseye". BBC. 26 November 2022. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
^ "National Sports Awards 2021: Neeraj Chopra, Lovlina Borgohain, Mithali Raj Among 9 Others to Get Khel Ratna". News18. 2 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
^ Sharma, Nitin (26 January 2022). "Para champions, Neeraj Chopra, hockey star Vandana Katariya among Padma awardees". Indian Express. Retrieved 26 January 2022.

v t e Recipients of Padma Shri in Sports
1950s	Balbir Singh Sr. (1957) K. D. Singh (1958) Mihir Sen (1959) Milkha Singh (1959)
1960s	Vijay Hazare (1960) Jasu Patel (1960) Arati Saha (1960) Nari Contractor (1962) Sonam Gyatso (1962) Ramanathan Krishnan (1962) Gostha Pal (1962) Polly Umrigar (1962) Syed Mushtaq Ali (1963) M. J. Gopalan (1964) Nawang Gombu (1964) Charanjit Singh (1964) H. P. S. Ahluwalia (1965) Avtar Singh Cheema (1965) D. B. Deodhar (1965) Phu Dorjee (1965) Wilson Jones (1965) Verghese Kurien (1965) Harish Chandra Singh Rawat (1965) Chandra Prakash Vohra (1965) Sonam Wangyal (1965) Kishan Lal (1966) Narendra Kumar (1965) Shankar Lakshman (1967) Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi (1967) Gurdial Singh (1967) Prithipal Singh (1967) Chandu Borde (1969)
1970s	Bishan Singh Bedi (1970) Moin-ul-Haq (1970) E. A. S. Prasanna (1970) Leslie Claudius (1971) Sailen Manna (1971) Ghaus Mohammad (1971) Chandgi Ram (1971) Kamaljeet Sandhu (1971) Gundappa Viswanath (1971) Harsh Vardhan Bahuguna (1972) B. S. Chandrasekhar (1972) Ajit Wadekar (1972) Farokh Engineer (1973) Pankaj Roy (1975) Roshan Lal Anand (1976) Meena Shah (1977)
1980s	Vasudevan Baskaran (1981) Syed Kirmani (1982) Kapil Dev (1982) Prakash Padukone (1982) Vijay Amritraj (1983) Bahadur Singh Chouhan (1983) Guru Hanuman (1983) Eliza Nelson (1983) Chand Ram (1983) Kaur Singh (1983) Raghubir Singh (1983) Satpal Singh (1983) M. D. Valsamma (1983) Geeta Zutshi (1983) Charles Borromeo (1984) Phu Dorjee (1984) Chuni Goswami (1984) D. K. Khullar (1984) Bachendri Pal (1984) Omprakesh Agrawal (1985) P. T. Usha (1985) Anupama Gokhale (1986) Swaroop Kishen (1986) Geet Sethi (1986) Mohammad Shahid (1986) Bhagyashree Thipsay (1987) Dilip Vengsarkar (1987) Viswanathan Anand (1988) Mohammad Azharuddin (1988)
1990s	Chandraprabha Aitwal (1990) P. K. Banerjee (1990) Premchand Degra (1990) Gulshan Rai (1990) Jaman Lal Sharma (1990) Taranath Narayan Shenoy (1990) Selma D'Silva (1991) Aspy Adajania (1992) Ajit Pal Singh (1992) Sriram Singh (1992) Hakam Singh (1992) Shiny Abraham (1998) Ramesh Krishnan (1998) Lila Ram (1998) Pargat Singh (1998) Karnam Malleswari (1999) Sachin Tendulkar (1999)
2000s	Santosh Yadav (2000) Mahesh Bhupathi (2001) Malathi Krishnamurthy Holla (2001) Bhuvneshwari Kumari (2001) Leander Paes (2001) Dhanraj Pillay (2001) Sunita Rani (2001) Diana Edulji (2002) Jaspal Rana (2002) Mukesh Kumar (2003) Gopal Purushottam Phadke (2003) Kanhaya Lal Pokhriyal (2003) Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (2003) Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (2003) K. M. Beenamol (2004) Gurmayum Anita Devi (2004) Rahul Dravid (2004) Sourav Ganguly (2004) Anju Bobby George (2004) S. P. Nimbalkar (2004) Dilip Tirkey (2004) Pullela Gopichand (2005) Anil Kumble (2005) Gurbachan Singh Randhawa (2005) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (2005) Rachel Thomas (2005) Madhumita Bisht (2006) Mohan Singh Gunjyal (2006) Mary Kom (2006) Sania Mirza (2006) Bahadur Singh Sagoo (2006) Koneru Humpy (2007) Jeev Milkha Singh (2007) Bhaichung Bhutia (2008) Bula Choudhury (2008) Pankaj Advani (2009) MS Dhoni (2009) Balbir Singh Kullar (2009) Harbhajan Singh (2009)
2010s	Ramakant Achrekar (2010) Narain Karthikeyan (2010) Saina Nehwal (2010) Virender Sehwag (2010) Vijender Singh (2010) Ignace Tirkey (2010) Kunjarani Devi (2011) Sushil Kumar (2011) VVS Laxman (2011) Shital Mahajan (2011) Gagan Narang (2011) Krishna Poonia (2011) Harbhajan Singh (mountaineer) (2011) S. M. Arif (2012) Ravi Chaturvedi (2012) Jhulan Goswami (2012) Zafar Iqbal (field hockey) (2012) Devendra Jhajharia (2012) Limba Ram (2012) Prabhakar Vaidya (2012) Premlata Agrawal (2013) Yogeshwar Dutt (2013) Vijay Kumar (2013) Girisha Nagarajegowda (2013) Dingko Singh (2013) Bajrang Lal Takhar (2013) Anjum Chopra (2014) Sunil Dabas (2014) Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu (2014) Dipika Pallikal (2014) H. Boniface Prabhu (2014) Yuvraj Singh (2014) Mamta Sodha (2014) Saba Anjum Karim (2015) Mithali Raj (2015) P. V. Sindhu (2015) Sardara Singh (2015) Arunima Sinha (2015) Sushil Doshi (2016) Deepika Kumari (2016) Vikas Gowda (2017) Dipa Karmakar (2017) Virat Kohli (2017) Deepa Malik (2017) Sakshi Malik (2017) Shekhar Naik (2017) P. R. Sreejesh (2017) Mariyappan Thangavelu (2017) Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (2018) Somdev Devvarman (2018) Murlikant Petkar (2018) Srikanth Kidambi (2018) Sunil Chhetri (2019) Harika Dronavalli (2019) Gautam Gambhir (2019) Sharath Kamal (2019) Bombayla Devi Laishram (2019) Bajrang Punia (2019) Prashanti Singh (2019) Ajay Thakur (2019)
2020s	Oinam Bembem Devi (2020) M. P. Ganesh (2020) Zaheer Khan (2020) Jitu Rai (2020) Tarundeep Rai (2020) Rani Rampal (2020) Anitha Pauldurai (2021) Anshu Jamsenpa (2021) Mouma Das (2021) Sudha Singh (2021) Virender Singh (2021) K. Y. Venkatesh (2021) Sumit Antil (2022) Pramod Bhagat (2022) Neeraj Chopra (2022) Sankara Narayana Menon Chundayil (2022) Faisal Ali Dar (2022) Vandana Katariya (2022) Avani Lekhara (2022) Brahmanand Sankhwalkar (2022) S. R. D. Prasad (2023) K. Shanathoiba Sharma (2023) Gurcharan Singh (2023) Joshna Chinnappa (2024) Rohan Bopanna (2024) Purnima Mahato (2024) Harbinder Singh (2024) Satendra Singh Lohiya (2024) Gaurav Khanna (2024) Uday Vishwanath Deshpande

v t e Recipients of Khel Ratna
1991–2000	Viswanathan Anand (1991–1992) Geet Sethi (1992–1993) Homi Motivala and Pushpendra Kumar Garg (1993–1994) Karnam Malleswari (1994–1995) Kunjarani Devi (1995–1996) Leander Paes (1996–1997) Sachin Tendulkar (1997–1998) Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (1998–1999) Dhanraj Pillay (1999–2000) Pullela Gopichand (2000–2001)
2001–2010	Abhinav Bindra (2001) K. M. Beenamol and Anjali Bhagwat (2002) Anju Bobby George (2003) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (2004) Pankaj Advani (2005) Manavjit Singh Sandhu (2006) MS Dhoni (2007) No award (2008) Mary Kom, Vijender Singh, and Sushil Kumar (2009) Saina Nehwal (2010)
2011–2020	Gagan Narang (2011) Vijay Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt (2012) Ronjan Sodhi (2013) No award (2014) Sania Mirza (2015) P. V. Sindhu, Dipa Karmakar, Jitu Rai, and Sakshi Malik (2016) Devendra Jhajharia and Sardara Singh (2017) Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and Virat Kohli (2018) Deepa Malik and Bajrang Punia (2019) Rohit Sharma, Mariyappan Thangavelu, Manika Batra, Vinesh Phogat, and Rani Rampal (2020)
2021–2030	Avani Lekhara, Neeraj Chopra, Ravi Kumar Dahiya, Lovlina Borgohain, P. R. Sreejesh, Sumit Antil, Pramod Bhagat, Krishna Nagar, Manish Narwal, Mithali Raj, Sunil Chhetri and Manpreet Singh (2021) Sharath Kamal (2022) Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (2023)

v t e Paralympic medalists for India
1968 1972 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Gold medalists	: Murlikant Petkar (1972 Heidelberg) : Devendra Jhajharia (2 titles, 2004 Athens, 2016 Rio de Janeiro) : Mariyappan Thangavelu (2016 Rio de Janeiro) : Avani Lekhara (2020 Tokyo) : Sumit Antil (2020 Tokyo) : Manish Narwal (2020 Tokyo) : Pramod Bhagat (2020 Tokyo) : Krishna Nagar (2020 Tokyo)
Silver medalists	: Bhimrao Kesarkar (1984 Stoke Mandeville/New York) : Joginder Singh Bedi (1984 Stoke Mandeville/New York) : Girisha Nagarajegowda (2012 London) : Deepa Malik (2016 Rio de Janeiro) : Bhavina Patel (2020 Tokyo) : Nishad Kumar (2020 Tokyo) : Yogesh Kathuniya (2020 Tokyo) : Devendra Jhajharia (2020 Tokyo) : Mariyappan Thangavelu (2020 Tokyo) : Praveen Kumar (2020 Tokyo) : Singhraj Adhana (2020 Tokyo) : Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj (2020 Tokyo)
Bronze medalists	: Joginder Singh Bedi (2 titles, 1984 Stoke Mandeville/New York) : Rajinder Singh Rahelu (2004 Athens) : Varun Singh Bhati (2016 Rio de Janeiro) : Sundar Singh Gurjar (2020 Tokyo) : Singhraj Adhana (2020 Tokyo) : Sharad Kumar (2020 Tokyo) : Avani Lekhara (2020 Tokyo) : Harvinder Singh (2020 Tokyo) : Manoj Sarkar (2020 Tokyo)