Indian Para athletes create history, bag 111 medals in Hangzhou Asian games

NT Bureau, Agencies

Hangzhou: Indian para athletes created history on Saturday as they ended their Hangzhou Asian Para Games campaign with an unprecedented 111 medals, the biggest haul for the country in any major international multisport event.

With 29 gold, 31 silver and 51 bronze in their kitty, the Indian para athletes won four medals more than the record tally of 107 won by the able-bodied athletes in the Asian Games held from September 23 to October 8.

India ended at fifth place in the medals tally, a remarkable achievement in itself, below China (521 medals: 214 gold, 167 silver, 140 bronze), Iran (131: 44, 46, 41), Japan (150: 42, 49, 59) and Korea (103: 30, 33, 40).

The first Para Asian Games was held in 2010 in Guangzhou, China, where India had finished 15th with 14 medals, including one gold. Four year later, India had finished ninth.

The only earlier instance of India crossing the 100-medal mark in a major international multisport event (Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games) was the 101 medals the country won during the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Paralympic Committee of India president Deepa Malik said that the performance in Hangzhou gave her hope that the para athletes will bag more medals in 2024 Paris Paralympics.

"We have made history, our para athletes have done the country proud. We will win more medals in the Paris Paralympics than in Tokyo," she said.

"However, it is not a surprise for us. We expected (to win) between 110 to 115 medals and we ended at 111, the auspicious number (Angel Number)," she added.

On Thursday, India had gone past the earlier highest Asian Para Games tally of 72 medals (15 gold, 24 silver, 33 bronze) achieved in the 2018 edition. India won 39 more medals than the 2018 edition with athletics contributing 55 (18 gold, 17 silver, 20) out of 111.

Indian shuttlers contributed the second most count with 21 medals, including four gold. Chess and archery gave eight and seven medals respectively while shooting contributed six.

Neeraj Yadav began the day for India with a gold in men's javelin throw F55 with a Games record of 33.69m. Compatriot Tek Chand clinched a bronze with a personal best of 30.36m in the same event.

Dilip Mahadu Gaviot added another athletics gold winning the men's 400m T47 race with a time of 49.48 seconds.

• India's record-breaking medal, includes 29 gold medals, 31 silver and 51 bronze.
• This is 39 medals more than how many India had won in the 2018 edition.
• In the overall leaderboard, India finished in 5th position which is also their best-ever standing.