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The Brave Hearts
started playing table tennis stylishly while sitting in the wheelchair.
But more than all these games, he enjoyed swimming the most. For pushing oneself forward in water, one has to move ones hands and legs constantly. He did have the hands but the legs, were that of the wheel-chair, which were of no use. Yet with the help of his strong arms he became an expert swimmer. He could swim both free-style and breast stroke.* He was now a better swimmer than even his coach. Although his legs were completely dead, he moved like a fish when he swam.
In July 1969, the commonwealth games for the physically challenge were organised in which Murli participated with great enthusiasm. He won a gold medal in the swimming competition and a bronze in table-tennis. He won silver medals in many other events. He showed such prowess in these games that he was adjudged the best sportsman of the commonwealth games meet. Taking his achievements into consideration, he was promoted to the rank of a company havaldar in the army.
None of the Indian sportsmen or women could win even a single gold medal in the 1968 Mexico Olympics. An Indian had not won gold in any of the individual events in any of the Olympic meets yet. With such a background of the performance of Indian participants in Olympic games, it was indeed very creditable that an Indian participant had secured a gold in the Commonwealth Olympic games organised for the physically challenge. This credit goes to Murlikant Rajaram Pethkar of the Indian armed forces. He thus became the first Indian ever to win a gold medal in individual events in any of the commonwealth games. Can there be a more significant achievement than this in the field of sports ? Murlikant went on amassing more and more
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