Preeti Pal Honors Murdered Training Partner with Podium Finish
Preeti Pal put up an impressive show at the 2026 Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya. Preeti followed her silver medal-winning run in the 200m event with another top-three finish on Wednesday in the 100m T35 for women. She came in second, losing to Zhou Xia of China by 0.41 seconds. A double silver would be a proud result for any sprinter. Still, for Preeti it carried another weight, because she has said she dedicated the medals to a friend and training partner who was not there to see them, Chirag Tyagi, a young para athlete who was shot dead in May.
A Medal Meant for a Friend Who Never Reached Nagoya
Chirag had qualified for the same Games, a T12 para athlete who, according to reports, was found dead in Ghaziabad at the end of May, after which the Paralympic Committee of India wrote to the sports ministry on 3 June asking for a CBI inquiry. Media reports say police later arrested a fellow para athlete over the killing, and since the case is still moving through the system, it would be wrong to say more than the reports have established. What Preeti has made clear is how she remembers him. She and Simran Sharma trained with Chirag at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium under coach Gajendra Singh, and she has described him as a younger brother who quickly became a trusted training partner and who dreamed of winning medals for India.
Her words after the race were simple and unadorned. “I dedicate the medals I won to Chirag. "He makes her feel like he is like her little brother," she continued. Both she and Simran miss him every day at the stadium. His room was located opposite their room, and she believes that he would stand on the podium in Nagoya had he been alive. Not many sports stories conceal such sorrow within the joy of celebration: the race has ended, the flag has been hoisted up, and beyond all the celebration there is one name which a runner will never forget.
From a Muzaffarnagar Locality to a Double Podium
Preeti’s path to these podiums has never been simple. She was born with cerebral palsy in Hashimpur, a small town located in Muzaffarnagar, which is itself located in the state of Uttar Pradesh. She had never heard about the Paralympic Games until she began her sporting career. She competed at the state level only during the initial period of nearly five years. While competing in the Asian Para Games of 2022 held in Hangzhou, she narrowly lost her medals in both the sprint events, by just a small margin and then a larger one. She stated that this failure inspired her to get better. Her improvement was recognized in Paris 2024, when she won bronze in both of the 100m and 200m T35 events.
She has been consistent, not flamboyant. The 2025 World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi was one of her key achievements. There, she took second place in the 100m T35 category and third place in the 200m T35 category. It was preceded by her earlier success at the Dubai Fazza International Para Athletics Championships. There, she won gold in the 100m category and silver in the 200m category. “The first competition takes place in one’s mind,” she once said. When PM Modi congratulated her, India was fifth in the medal tally with 62 medals.
The same small training group has had a remarkable week. Simran Sharma, who works with Preeti under coach Gajendra Singh at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, won gold in the women’s 100m T12 with a new Games record and then took the 200m T12 title in another Games record of 24.80 seconds, so a group that has been grieving a young teammate has come away with two golds and two silvers between two of its sprinters. It is hard not to imagine how much that would have meant to the friend they lost.
The silver medals won by Preeti are just a stepping stone. Preeti has already made it known that she aims for a gold medal in the next game, which is the Paralympic Games in 2028 in Los Angeles. However, her life is not all about ambition. The way she speaks about Chirag suggests a runner who understands that the people who train beside us shape every second on the clock, in ways no timing board records.
A stadium hostel is meant to be a second home for young athletes, and the grief around Chirag’s death is a reminder of how much those places matter to the families who send their children there. Preeti has chosen to answer the loss with effort and remembrance, and the podium in Nagoya is where she did it. In sharing these powerful women's success stories, we highlight true women changemakers in India, hoping her words reach the people who still carry Chirag’s memory, and that the case for him finds its answers.
