Noida District Magistrate (DM) and para-badminton player Suhas L. Yathiraj on Thursday (September 2) defeated Jan Niklas Pott of Germany 21-9, 21-3 in men’s singles SL4 – Group A match one of the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics. Suhas, who has become the first civil servant from the country to represent India in the Tokyo Paralympics, dominated the proceedings and completed the match in 19 minutes with a straight-set victory.
Niklas Pott had no answers to Suhas LY’s shots. Suhas LY will be compering in his second group stage match on Friday. Earlier in the day, shuttler Palak Kohli and Parul Parmar went down 0-2 against second-seeded Huihui MA and Hefang Cheng of China in their first Group B match.
Born in Hassan, Karnataka, Suhas LY is current world No. 3 in SL4 men’s singles badminton category of Para sports. He became National Champion after winning Gold Medal in Men's Singles category at 2nd National Para Badminton Championships held at Varanasi in March 2018.
At the 2016 Asian Para Badminton Championships in Beijing, Suhas LY became the first Indian bureaucrat to win a professional International Badminton Championship. He won gold beating Hary Susanto of Indonesia in the finals while serving as the District Magistrate of Azamgarh. The current Gautam Buddh Nagar DM came to International attention when he won gold and became first ever serving Indian bureaucrat to represent and win a medal for India at global level.
@dmgbnagar and badminton player Suhas Yathiraj won the first game. The 38-year-old Suhas took just 19 minutes to see off Germany's Jan Niklas Pott 21-9, 21-3 in a lopsided group A clash.@ParalympicIndia @Media_SAI @PMOIndia @ianuragthakur @BAI_Media @IASassociation @EurosportIN pic.twitter.com/ziEDjGVpJx
— Neeraj Jha (@neerajkjha) September 2, 2021
Apart from this, Suhas LY also won the BWF Turkish Open Para-Badminton Championships 2017 in Antalya in both the men’s singles and doubles category and repeated this achievement in singles in 2019 as well.
He was selected by Badminton World Federation to represent India in the Tokyo Paralympics event. BWF had invited BAI and PCI India based on world rankings and performance.
