Paralympians share their lockdown-induced practice routines using new voice Tweets feature

Indian Paralympic athletes Niranjan Mukundan and Devendra Jhajharia optimised Twitter’s latest test feature, voice Tweets, to share how they are turning the tables on coronavirus limitations that have brought all the sports activities across the world to a standstill and disrupted regular training sessions. 

Para-swimmer and former Junior World Champion, Niranjan Mukundan, whose swimming prowess is well-known to all, is choosing to swim with the current and look at the brighter side of this lockdown experience. He is eating healthy and training at home; focussing on strength and conditioning, weight workouts and cardio.

Commenting on the opportunity to share his experience with the countrymen, Mukundan said, “I love this new feature by Twitter. The voice Tweets will help everyone, especially the para-athletes. We have our own limitations when we have to type out a message. This feature is going to help us in expressing our views and words through our voice. It also lifts the barrier on the limited number of characters that we can capture in a Tweet. Kudos to Twitter for introducing this cool, new feature.”

@TwitterIndia in love with this new feature . pic.twitter.com/AZ9L25I7Ev — Niranjan_Mukundan (@SwimmerNiranjan) June 22, 2020

Meanwhile, two-time Paralympic gold medallist javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia also spoke about finding new ways to carry on. 

With limited access to the outdoors, he is reinventing his training sessions with the resources available to him at home. For instance, he is incorporating the use of makeshift equipment such as gas cylinders in his training regime. 

In his voice Tweet, the 38-year-old also recalled his 12-year-long wait for his second gold medal win at the Paralympics and added that he is all set to wait another year for Tokyo Olympics, which has been postponed.

@TwitterIndia pic.twitter.com/mBm423S54G — Devendra Jhajharia (@DevJhajharia) June 22, 2020

Twitter recently introduced voice Tweets experiment to test a new way to start a conversation. On iOS, people can now Tweet with their voice by following a few simple steps: hit compose Tweet, record audio, and attach it to the Tweet, that’s it. This new test allows people to create a more human experience.