Palesha Goverdhan created history on Friday as she won a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, becoming the first ever athlete from Nepal to win a Paralympic medal.

Goverdhan defeated Marija Micev of Serbia 15-8 in the bronze medal match of the women’s k44 under 57 kg weight category taekwondo competition at the Grand Palais in Paris, which also made her the first Nepali athlete to win an official Olympic medal.

Her bronze is the highest ever sports honour any Nepali athlete has received so far.

Nepal has never won a medal at the Summer Games in its 60-year long Olympic history—leave aside Bidhan Lama’s bronze in the exhibition taekwondo event at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul and the gold presented to Tejbir Bura at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France for his alpinism effort as part of the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition. Both medals were not officially recognised by the International Olympic Committee.

Nepal made its Paralympics Games debut at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, sending Nirmala Gyawali in the women’s shot put event. Jit Bahadur Khadka was the second athlete to participate at the Paralympic Games. He competed in the men's 100m at 2008 Summer Paralympics.

The 21-year-old para taekwondo athlete Goverdhan, who appeared in her second successive Paralympics, was finally able to kiss the medal after coming so close at the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago.

Goverdhan had lost to China’s Li Yujie in the women’s 58kg K44 in the bronze medal final in Tokyo.

But Goverdhan, who was born without a palm in her hand, has only become better through time.

At the Asian Para Games 2022 in Hangzhou, China, Goverdhan wrote history when she became the first Nepali athlete to win a medal in Asian Para Games. Goverdhan had defeated China’s Yang Li Ting 14-1 to enter semi-finals, assuring at least a bronze medal.

Following Nepal’s another poor show at the Paris Summer Games which took place from July 26 to August 11, hopes of a medal for Nepal solely rested on Goverdhan, who had become the first Nepali paralympian to qualify for the Paralympic Games following her victory over Iran’s Leila Mirzae in the final of the Asian Qualification Tournament in Taiyang, China.

Goverdhan did not disappoint.

She defeated Valeria Morales of Venezuela 31-0 in the round of 16 to progress to the quarter-finals. She lost to Tokyo Paralympics bronze medallist Silvana Fernandes of Brazil 8-10 in the last eight but clawed her way back to defeat Sophie Caverzan of France 2-1 in the repechage contest to set up the bronze medal final against Micev.

Her victory over the Serbian was her fifth match victory in the Paralympic Games—she had won two repechage bouts in Tokyo – a feat no Nepali athlete has achieved either at the Summer Games or the Summer Paralympics.

It was all written in the stars.

Nepal’s Bharat Singh Mahata crashed out of the Paris Paralympics on Thursday after he lost his men’s K44 under 58 kg round of 16 match of the taekwondo competition against Mitsuya Tanaka of Japan 3-19.

Para swimmer Bhim Bahadur Kumal will compete in the men’s 50m freestyle Heat on Monday.