Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh): International para swimmer Satyendra Singh Lohia, a resident of Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior, is set to receive the Padma Shri award- the fourth highest civilian award, for his outstanding achievements in sports.
How Lohia Became Asia’s 1st Para Swimmer To Cross English Channel?
Lohia is originally from Gwalior and he is currently posted in the GST department in Indore. Singh started swimming in 2007, since then till date he has participated in 7 National and 3 International Para Swimming Championships and has won around 20 medals in National, which includes 5 Gold Medals.
Para swimmer Satyendra became the first disabled person in Asia to cross the English Channel despite both his legs being damaged. On June 24, 2018, swimmer Satyendra Lohia crossed the 36 kilometre English Channel in London in 12 hours 26 minutes. Satyendra had achieved this success with his three friends. Remo Shah from Bengal, Chaitan Raut from Maharashtra and Jagdish Sandra from Rajasthan. He has also achieved the title of Asia's first para swimmer to cross the English Channel.
Apart from this, after crossing the English Channel Relay, he achieved another major achievement by crossing the Catalina Channel in the USA in 2019. He also created an Asian record by successfully crossing the Catalina Channel with a time of 11 hours 34 minutes. In the year 2022, Lohia made a world record by swimming the 36 kilometre North Channel in cold water at a temperature of 12 degrees for 14 hours 39 minutes. He said that this is the first team from Asia which has crossed the cold North Channel. The water of the North Channel is colder than the English Channel.
Lohia has won 24 medals for the country by participating in the Nishad National Para Swimming Championship. After which he was honoured with the Tenzing Norgay Award by the President in 2020.
According to Satyendra, he is the first disabled player of India to be awarded. He was also called and honoured by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After receiving the Vikram Award of Madhya Pradesh in 2014, he was posted in the Government Service in the Commercial Tax Department in 2016.
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