India is already assured of a medal at the Para Asian Games 2026, when Manasi Joshi and Thulasimathi Murugesan entered the badminton semifinals of the women’s doubles SL3-SU5 in Aichi-Nagoya on Saturday. Although the Para Asian Games 2026, some of the events are being held from a few days back to finish the whole competition on time.
The Indian duo, who had bagged a silver at the Hangzhou edition in 2023, defeated China’s Yuemei Liu and Tongtong Li 21-10, 21-17 to register their second successive win and confirm a top-two finish in Group A with a match to spare. With both losing semifinalists assured of bronze, the victory guaranteed India a place on the podium.
Joshi and Thulasimathi had earlier defeated Indonesia’s Rahayu Warining and Qonitah Ikhtiar Syakuroh on Friday. They will face China’s Yang Qiuxia and Xiao Zuxian in their final group match on Monday.
In fact, Joshi carries a story. Born in 1989 in Rajkot, Joshi is a former world no.1 in women’s singles SL3 category and a former world champion. She was born perfect and started able-bodied badminton around nine years of age and played at the school and district levels.
Joshi graduated in Electronics Engineering from KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, University of Mumbai and started her professional career as an electronics engineer until December 2011 when a sudden accident changed her life completely.
On a normal Friday morning, the 22-year-old was on her way to office, which was barely seven kilometre from her house. Joshi used to commute by motorbike. But a disaster struck 10 minutes after she set out for her work, while taking a U-Turn under a flyover. A truck, travelling in wrong direction ran over her left leg.
With no ambulance and no surgeon at the nearby hospital where she was initially taken, Joshi was shifted to another hospital which was 10-12 kms far. It was after close to nine hours that Joshi received proper treatment.
During her 45 days at the hospital, the doctors made it a priority to save her leg with surgeries after every five to 10 days. But with gangrene settling in, the doctors had no other option to ampute her left leg.
Joshi returned to sport as a part of her rehabilitation. She started walking with a prosthetic limb by 2012 and even took part in an inter-company badminton championship, which she won. Joshi had also learnt scuba diving and decided to turn professional in 2014.
Joshi’s major break came in 2015, when she won a mixed doubles silver at the Para World Championships. In the same tournament two years later, Joshi won bronze in women’s singles. With success following her, Joshi joined Pullella Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad, with an eye at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Her major break came at the 2019 BWF Para-Badminton World Championships in Basel, Switzerland. A day before PV Sindhu won a historic gold, Joshi defeated fellow Parul Parmar to win the World Championships. It’s her only gold so far at the Asian and world tourneys.
In the Para , Joshi has won two bronze medals (2018 Jakarta & 2022 Hangzhou, both in women’s singles) and one silver (2022 Hangzhou, women’s doubles).
