On Monday, India kick-started their Asian Para Games 2023 journey with remarkable achievements on the opening day, encompassing three gold, five silver, and two bronze medals.
Athlete Prachi Yadav brought home the first medal for the country, a sparkling silver in the women's VL2 category of canoeing. Alongside her remarkable achievement, India also shone in various other events, clinching medals in men's high jump T63, men's shot put F51, men's high jump T47, and men's shot put F11.
Yadav gave Uzbekistan's Irodakhon Rustamova, who won gold in canoeing, a tough fight. The difference between the two was just 1.022 seconds.
The Uzbek athlete clocked 1:02:125, while Yadav finished the race in 1:03:47. Japan's Saki Komatsu took the bronze medal in 1:11:635.
However, the women couldn't make it to the podium in the VL3 final as Sangeeta Rajput, Shabana and Rajni Jha finished fourth, fifth and seventh respectively.
Uzbekistan's Shakhzoda Mamadalieva won the gold medal while China's Yongyuan took the silver and Kazakhstan's Zhanyl Baltabayeva the bronze in the event.
Podium Sweep in Two Events
India swept the podium in Men’s High Jump-T63 event as athletes Shailesh Kumar and Mariyappan Thangavelu won gold and silver medals respectively.
Govindbhai Ramsingbhai Padhiyar was the third athlete to take part in the event, but he was not awarded a medal as the Asian Paralympic Committee (APC) requires four athletes to compete for all three medals.
Apart from this, Indian athletes swept the podium in the Men's Club Throw F51 event as Pranav Soorma won the gold medal and also broke the Asian Para Games record with a throw of 30.01 metres.
Dharambir won the silver medal with a throw of 28.76 metres while Amit Kumar won the bronze medal with a throw of 26.93 metres.
The third gold medal for the country went to Nishad Kumar in the Men's T47 High Jump, who cleared 2.02 metres, while Ram Pal won the bronze medal with a leap of 1.94 metres.
Another Indian athlete, Monu Ghangas, won the bronze medal in Men’s Shot Put F11 event with an effort of 12.33m.
The Asian Para Games 2023 are being held in Hangzhou and India will be looking forward to surpassing its best performance of 72 medals including 15 gold, 24 silver and 33 bronze in the 2018 games held in Indonesia.
At the moment, India is second only to China with 11 gold, 11 silver and 7 bronze medals.