Manasi Joshi, clinched the gold in women’s singles SL3 final defeating World No. 1 and compatriot Parul Parmar 21-12, 21-7 to pick her maiden title in Para World badminton championship at the same venue where the big guns like Sindhu, Kento Momota are all in action. Mansi lost his left leg in an accident in 2011. Eight years later, she defeated three-time world champion Parmar in the final.
Mansi trains at Gopichand Academy. India won a total of 14 medals in the tournament, including three gold and three silver medals. The Paralympic Committee of India has congratulated Mansi Joshi for the victory. Kiran Bedi tweeted congratulating her - In the high of PV Sindhu getting Gold in world championship, we forgot to wish #ManasiJoshi, who won Gold in World Para Badminton championship!
Sometime ago she shared her very inspiring journey with Scoopwhoop and said :-
"I was on my way to work on a two wheeler one day when a trucked rammed into me and completely crushed my leg. It wasn’t the driver’s fault - there was a pillar which hindered his vision. People around immediately took me to the hospital and even though it happened around 9:30 am I was only operated upon at 5:30 pm. The doctors tried to save my leg but after a few days it got infected and I had to be amputated. When the doctor told me, I asked him ‘why did you take so long? I knew for a while that this would happen."
"What got me through this whole ordeal is acceptance - that this is my fate, now I can either choose to cry about it, or take it with a pinch of salt and push myself…I picked the latter. In fact when people used to come to visit me in the hospital and get emotional — I would tell them jokes to make them laugh!"
"So I took the physiotherapy, and began to learn how to walk all over again. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to play badminton which has been my passion since childhood — but somehow even while I was facing difficulty in walking…I could play. I began winning corporate badminton tournaments, and on the suggestion of one of my amputee friends decided to try out at a National Level. I went on to win several medals at the National level. I’ve trained for 5 hours a day, whilst juggling my job as a software engineer, almost completed my training in Scuba Diving and traveled pretty much all over India."
"When people ask me, ‘how do you do so much?’ I just ask one question — ‘What’s stopping you?’"