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Fighting against all odds, Shubham Wadhwa, a computer science engineering student and a para table tennis player, won three gold medals in mixed doubles, men’s doubles and men’s single Class-3 category at the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) Para Table Tennis National Championship 2023-24 in Indore on Friday, among 18 players from different states.
Wadhwa, trained by his coach Sahil Sharma, who runs the Aspire Table Tennis Academy in Model Town, participated in nine international tournaments previous year and clinched three titles in para table tennis. He also won a gold in Khelo India Para Games in December 2023.
A student of Lovely Professional University (LPU), elated by his victory in the championship, said, “I am extremely happy with the result but my ultimate goal is to qualify for The Paralympic Games of Paris 2024, for which I am keeping my nose to the grindstone.”
These tournaments are the stepping stones to the Olympics and Commonwealth Asian Games. The number of titles earned by a player in these tournaments add points for that particular player, making them eligible for Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
Wadhwa met with an accident in February 2016, getting his spinal cord injured, post which he spent around two months on a ventilator. “My life turned upside down when my lower body got paralysed and I was bedridden for more than two years but the support of my family motivated me to start a new life and then I resumed my studies in 2018.”
Before getting introduced to table tennis, Shubham did Wheelchair modelling at LPU and even tried his luck in bodybuilding. In 2019, with the help of Ludhiana Table Tennis Association, he started playing the game and clinched gold for the first time at Para National Table Tennis Championship in 2022. He also grabbed three medals, including a gold in men’s single, another gold in men’s doubles and a silver in mixed doubles, at the National Ranking Para Table Tennis Championship in February this year.
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Wadhwa is now gearing up for his tournament for Paralympic qualification which is going to be held in Thailand in May this year.
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