From a racing driver to a para table tennis medallist, it’s Mission Paris 2024 Paralympics for JD Madan

Destiny forced JD Madan to switch lanes. For someone who zip, zap zoomed the racing tracks near Chennai, life had other plans for the ‘hobby racer’ who is now 44.

An accident in 2007 left Madan paralysed from the chest down. He was on a business trip in Mumbai little knowing that the city’s chaotic traffic will leave him gutted. Well, almost.

Madan’s quest for life and sport remained despite the accident. At a time when the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics are in full swing, the former racing driver is honing his skills in a new sport - table tennis. For him, it’s Mission Paris 2024 Paralympics!

JD Madan has even won a silver medal from the para national table tennis championships held in Indore, Madhya Pradesh this March. At the same para tournament, Bhavina Patel beat Sonal Patel in the women’s table tennis final. Both the Patels qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

Competing in the Class 1 category, Madan’s table tennis journey is just six months old. Before his accident, JD Madan was a ‘hobby racer’ competing in single-seater open-wheel race cars in Chennai. He has even been on the podium at these races.

Tennis was his first sport. Madan picked up a tennis racket when he was six and played almost every day till the accident consigned him to the wheelchair. But that did not put brakes in his urge to remain a sportsman.

“If you ask anyone who can play tennis, they will tell you they can play table tennis too,” JD Madan told Olympics.com. “I was looking for a way to get the same feeling. You hit a ball, the timing, hitting it in the right place, it’s so much involvement. I wanted to do something to get a feel of the same thing. 

“So I tried tennis, and I was just so weak that I could barely push the chair fast enough to enjoy it,” JD Madan pointed out.

It was during the COVID-19-induced lockdown that JD Madan turned to table tennis at his local club, fortunate enough to be able to play about five times a week. He discovered that he could “enjoy the feeling of timing” again without getting tired or struggling through it.

“And I looked up a couple of YouTube videos and I said ‘Wow! I seem to be playing like this already!’ I mean that’s how it looked, ok,” JD Madan said.

“The international level is much tougher. I checked out some Olympic videos, and I said I could pretty much do all of what they are doing.”

JD Madan then entered the para national table tennis championship with ‘zero expectations’ approaching the event one match at a time.

“What might have helped is because of corona, there weren’t as many entries as there might have been,” JD Madan admitted. “So there was less competition. But I don’t want to take anything away from those who participated.”

The last time he competed professionally in racing was some 15 years ago. This March at the para table tennis nationals, JD Madan got a feel of a final match. He lost 3-0 to Sandeep Dangi of Haryana in the gold medal match but the result was not the only important aspect in his life.

“It’s all about travelling and meeting new people, it’s about playing with different standards of table tennis, you learn so much,” JD Madan reflected. “The tournament was really well managed. And they let us play in this massive stadium. That’s what the Paralympics is for, no? It’s to inspire you and make you get along with your day, right?”

It was a whole new ball game for JD Madan. But he says that his decade-long motorsport experience, racing against others and trying not to make mistakes, gave him the temperament. His years in tennis also helped him develop his TT game quickly.

“Tennis has topspin and slice and flat and it’s similar to table tennis. So in table tennis, you know where the ball is moving, the curve and feel of the ball… then percentage shots over risky shots, what to play when, they are so similar.”

JD Madan is now charting a path to represent India at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. He feels confident and thinks that the target is achievable. Madan intends to play a slew of international tournaments along the way and is currently raising funds for it.

And he is having fun along the way as well.