Mahesana: Family members and friends of paddler Bhavina Patel broke into traditional “Garba” dance, burst firecrackers and smeared each other with ‘gulal’ at her native Sundhiya village in Gujarat’s Mehsana district soon after she won a historic silver medal at the Paralympic Games in the women’s singles class 4 final in Tokyo on Sunday. Patel on Sunday became only the second Indian woman to win a medal at the Paralympics after she signed off with a historic silver following a 0-3 loss to world number one Chinese paddler Ying Zhou in the women’s singles table tennis class 4 final.

The 34-year-old Patel’s impressive run at the Games ended with a fighting 7-11 5-11 6-11 loss to Zhou, a two-time gold medallist, in the women’s singles summit clash which lasted 19 minutes.

#WATCH Family members and friends of Para-paddler Bhavina Patel in Mehsana perform 'garba' to celebrate her bringing home a Silver medal in her maiden Paralympic Games pic.twitter.com/h55CAAycOG

— ANI (@ANI) August 29, 2021

“She may be ‘Divyang’ (differently-abled), but to us, she never appeared to be so. For us, she is ‘Divya’ (divine). We are very happy that she has brought a silver medal for our country,” her father Hasmukh Patel, told reporters after her victory.