Singapore’s para long jumper Suhairi Suhani meets the cut for 2024 Paralympics (2024)

SINGAPORE – Eight years ago, national para athlete Suhairi Suhani was flying high in his career.

Fresh off a long jump silver in the 2015 Asean Para Games, he made his debut at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he finished a creditable eighth.

Little did he know that it would be years before his return to the world’s biggest sporting stage, as injuries derailed his progress.

The 26-year-old, who competes in the T20 category for athletes with intellectual impairments, suffered a hamstring tear at the 2019 Singapore Track and Field Open and did not qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021.

He also hit a “mental block” for four years while nursing a slight knee injury.

The jumper is looking to put his woes behind him in 2024, after meeting the qualifying mark for the Paris Games at the Singapore Open on April 19.

The retail associate said: “I feel blessed, I’ve been up and down through my sporting career, being injured; it has been difficult finding ways to get back to high performance again.

“It has been a rough couple of years, so to qualify for the Paralympics after missing out on Tokyo because of injury, I’m definitely happy.”

Suhairi admitted that he made some mis-steps while trying to qualify for the Tokyo Games by “rushing to go back immediately, when what I needed to do was step back and rehab”.

That is all in the past now, after he leapt 6.67m at the Singapore Open to make the cut.

Just last week, he competed at the World Para Athletics Championships, where he recorded 6.32m in a headwind and finished eighth.

He is aiming to improve on his personal best of 6.85m before the quadrennial Games.

Suhairi’s coach Veeramani Chidambaram said they had to make some adjustments to help him overcome his mental block by creating “a routine that he is comfortable to use whenever he is in a stressful situation”.

He added: “Paris will definitely be a tough one because he has so many jumpers within his category.

“But our aim is just to better ourselves year on year, which is what we have always been working on.”

Suhairi, along with shot putter Diroy Noordin – who also met the qualifying mark – will now have to wait for World Para Athletics to offer the slot to Singapore, before the Singapore National Paralympic Council selects the athlete for the Games.

On June 7, he will head to Paris with Diroy and James Ang for the Handisport Open Grand Prix, before travelling to Germany for a final training camp.

Other Singaporeans who have met the mark for the Paralympics are archer Nur Syahidah Alim, shooter Daniel Chan, boccia athlete Jeralyn Tan, equestriennes Laurentia Tan, Gemma Foo and Hilary Su, and swimmers Yip Pin Xiu, Toh Wei Soong and Sophie Soon.