chennai even as the limelight was on tamil nadus mariyappan thangavelu as he was conferred with the khel ratna award on saturday morning the state had another reason to celebrate in the form of noted paraathlete coach j ranjith kumar who won the dhyan chand award after being overlooked for the award on four occasions previously the stars have finally shone on ranjith the award is given to sportspersons who have excelled both during their career and post retirementthe 46yearold with over 20 international medals to his name in a career that spanned from 1998 to 2014 was emotional as he recalled those years as an international athlete before switching to coaching the dhyan chand award is undoubtedly one of the proudest moments of my career while i have won many medals for the country but to be recognized by the government for the work i have put in to train the next generation of paraathletes is a huge honour ranjith told toihailing from madurai ranjith lost his father early and polio on both legs left him wheelchairbound he discontinued studies after class x and took up different jobs to keep his family financially afloat it was a testing time for me as i worked in std booths and even in travel agencies to run the family before sports came calling in 1998 ranjith recalled though he was interested in sports during his schooling days ranjith decided to carve a career out of it thanks to the encouragement from his first coach parasuraman paraathletes need more assurance about their talents than abled athletes parasuraman sir instilled a lot of selfbelief in me and that did wonders in the subsequent years ranjith saidwhile ranjith has brought numerous laurels for india on the international stage the bronze in discus throw at the 2006 melbourne commonwealth games remains his mostcherished effort parasports were first introduced at the 2002 commonwealth games in manchester i was the first indian paraathlete to win a medal at the cw games and i am proud of that he saidonce his own career came to a close ranjiths skillset as sdat coach in madurai came to the fore in training the next generation of tn paraathletes so far ranjith has coached hundreds of paraathletes who have won medals on the national and international circuit we owe our success to ranjith sir and if not for his efforts things would have been tough for us he gives us a sense of direction which is important said arunmoli who won 7 gold medals across shot put discus throw and javelin categories in the state para athletics meet at karaikudi last year