Paris : India’s 1st ever Para-Archery Gold medalist in Paralympics 2024 , Harvinder Singh’s mascot which he received after winning Gold medal was stolen from his car in the games village.
A mascot is given to medal winners. This is a thing that athletes keep close to heart and cherish for rest of the life. However, the Gold medalists’ happiness was shattered following this incident.
In an interview with eminent Sports Journalist Boria Majumdar, Harvinder revealed that he mistakenly left his mascot in dashboard of a car, from where it was stolen.
“I went to the car that was parked right outside the athletes’ entrance to go back to the village. I had the medal around my neck and the mascot, which was given to me as a prize, in my hand. I kept it on the dashboard of the car and mistakenly forgot about it,” Harvinder said.
“It was my gold medal-winning prize and was very special to me,” he added.
The archer upon returning to his room did realise that he has left it behind.
However, upon enquiring in the ‘Lost and Found‘ section, he was left dejected as the officials didn’t pay any heed to his pleas to trace the car, which, they could’ve easily done.
“I went to the ‘lost and found’ the next morning and said to them that I had left my mascot in the car and they needed to see if they could find it for me. They could easily trace the car from the set of assigned cars for the archery venue, and help me. They said they weren’t allowed to check back on which cars were assigned because of privacy issues, and they wouldn’t be able to help,” he said, adding that, “It was my gold medal-winning prize and they just refused to help. It was disappointing.”
Harvinder will return to India with a replica of the Mascot and not the original one. For him the Mascot meant a lot as it was given to the archer along with the prestigious and historic Gold medal.
This incident raises questions on the Paralympics mismanagement too.
“I felt so bad I went and bought a replica the next day, and will now carry that back home,” said Harvinder. “But I hope you realise it is not about a mascot. This one was special, because it was given to me with the gold medal. It was the best moment of my career and that’s what I tried explaining to them.”
It’s thus official that the archer won’t get his Mascot back. Harvinder created history becoming 1st Indian Paralympics Archer to bag Gold.
