India's Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj ended his campaign with a historic silver after going down fighting against top seed Lucas Mazur of France in the men's singles SL4 class final at the Tokyo Paralympics on Sunday.
The 38-year-old Noida district magistrate, who has an impairment in one of his ankles, produced an entertaining performance before narrowly going down 21-15 17-21 15-21 to two-time world champion Mazur in a 62-minute summit clash.
Suhas had lost to Mazur, who has won three gold medals in European Championships as well, in the qualifying group A match but India made a tremendous effort in the final to challenge his world No. 1 rival.
The district magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) thus also became the first-ever IAS officer to win a medal at the Paralympics.
Suhas had earlier outwitted Indonesia's Fredy Setiawan 21-9 21-15 in the semifinal.
