Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)

A trainee at the nationally renowned Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA), Bengaluru, Manisha Ramadass is the first Indian woman para-athlete to have won an international paralympics badminton medal.

In the 25-minute final of the SU5 category — a classification for players with upper limbs disability — the 19-year-old upset Denmark’s Cathrine Rosengren 21-12, 21-8 to win the bronze medal at the Paralympics staged in Paris between August 28-September 8 last year. To date, Manisha has won 45 medals — 16 gold, 6 silver and 23 bronze.

Manisha was born with an impaired right arm “the result of a clinical mistake by doctors” during her birth. Although she underwent three surgeries by age 12, the neural damage was irreparable. To overcome her disability, Manisha, the eldest child of Chennai-based civil contractor Ramadass Venkatasamy, and homemaker Sunitha, took to sports. She is also a first year online BBA student on a full scholarship of the city’s Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science & Technology.

Introduced to badminton at age ten (2015) when she was enrolled in S2K1, a tiny sports academy in Chennai, and later at Chennai’s Indoor Sports Academy, under the tutelage of Saravanan Sir and Ramkumar Sir, Manisha soon started competing and winning tournaments for able bodied athletes at the district, state and national levels. In 2019, she was advised to register for para tournaments as well, and started competing nationally. She made her international debut in 2022 at the Para Badminton International staged in Vitoria (Spain), where she won two golds and one bronze medal. The following year she bagged three bronze medals at the Asia Para Games in Hangzhou (China).

This shuttler’s ambition is to bring a gold medal back to India. “I am training to play intensively in national and international tournaments to raise my game to global standards. Currently, my focus is on the Asian Para Badminton Championships scheduled for June in Thailand, and Asian Para Games in October 2026 in Nagoya (Japan). But my ultimate dream is to participate and win gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics,” says Manisha, whose never-say-die spirit is certain to inspire India’s huge number of children with disabilities, whose population is estimated at 9.6 million, to play and win.