Athletics gold rush powers India's Asian Para Games show; Medal tally climbs to 35

NAGOYA: Seasoned names like Nishad Kumar and Deepthi Jeevanji surpassed expectations and the new entrants held out promise as India's Asian Para Games campaign soared on a solid athletics performance that brought in five gold medals here on Tuesday.

In fact, athletics was the lone gold contributor to India's tally on the day with Nishad Kumar emerging as the brightest star.

After his T47 long jump gold on Monday, he clinched the top spot in high jump as well to become only the third Indian ever to claim gold in two events of a single Para Asiad. He also smashed the Games record with his 2.04m jump.

At the end of day two, India were placed sixth on the table with 35 medals, including nine gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze. The athletics contribution to this tally currently stands at 20.

Deepthi set the pace quite early in the day as she reasserted her continental supremacy by snaring a second consecutive gold in the women's 400m T20 event after clocking a Games record time of 56.36sec.

The T20 classification covers athletes with intellectual impairments with challenges in processing information, concentration, and executing race plans or tactical strategies.

The 23-year-old from Telangana is a former world champion and had won a bronze in the 2024 Paralympics.

The gold rush continued with the visually impaired Simran (women's 200m T12), wheelchair-bound Pranav Soorma (F51/52/53 discus throw) and Devender Kumar (F44/64 discus throw) also fetching gold medals.

Simran, a Paralympic bronze-winner, overcame fatigue caused by lack of vegetarian food options here, to smash the Games record with a timing of 24.80sec. Games debutant Tejalben Damor took the bronze in the same event with a personal best of 25.23sec in the event for moderately visually impaired athletes.

Medals also poured in from the shooting range, the table tennis competition, swimming and powerlifting but it was athletics that added golden sheen to the overall Indian performance.

Silver in shooting, powerlifting

Manish Narwal clinched silver and secured a 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics quota place for India, while debutant Shrishti Arora won a bronze as Indian shooters collected two medals in the men's and women's 10m air pistol SH1 events.

The Indian shooting contingent took its tally to four medals after two days of competition, with one gold, two silver and a bronze.

Narwal, a 2024 Paris Paralympics silver-medallist and an Arjuna awardee from Ballabhgarh in Haryana's Faridabad district, shot 233.7 in the final to finish second behind South Korea's Jo Jeongdu.

A silver medal was also secured in powerlifting with Ashok Kumar Malik finishing second in men's 65kg competition, upgrading his bronze from the previous edition.

The 37-year-old from Gohana in Sonipat district, who contracted polio as a child, lifted a best of 192kg.

The bronze-winners in TT, swimming

Indian swimmers Himanshu Nandal and Niranjan Mukundan added two bronze medals to the country's tally.

Himanshu, the 22-year-old who was born blind due to an optic nerve failure, clocked 5:10.91 to finish third in the four-swimmer field in the men's 400m freestyle S11 event.

Niranjan then completed the men's 200m individual medley SM7 event with 2:57.01 to secure a bronze.

In the table tennis competition, Ravi Baby Sahana and Prachi Pandey scripted history by becoming India's first to make the podium in the standing category as the country secured four bronze medals.

Paralympics medallist Bhavina Patel, Sonalben Patel, Prachi and Sahana all went down to accomplished Paralympic medallists opponents in their respective women's singles semifinals.

The haul also took India past its medal tally from the previous edition, where it had won two bronze medals in para table tennis.

Strong show in archery, badminton

Defending champion Sheetal Devi and Games debutant Swati Chaudhary stormed into the finals of their respective individual events as India's para archers assured the country of five medals.

The 19-year-old Sheetal, who equalled the world record and created a new Asian record in the qualification round, defeated Japan's Shinohara Aya 145-137 in the women's compound semifinal to set up a gold-medal clash with Singapore's Alim Nur Syahidah.

Swati, who is making her Games debut, also assured India of at least a silver after beating South Korea's Eunhee Lee 6-2 in women's W1 semifinal.

W1 classification is for athletes with significant impairment in functional strength, range of motion, or limb loss across all four limbs.

India's recurve and compound women's doubles pairs also advanced to their respective gold-medal matches with semifinal victories.

The teenage pairing of world number one Sheetal, who was born without arms, and Payal Nag brushed aside Thailand's Phannibha Srathongmaew and Wasana Khuthawisap 151-135 in the compound women's doubles semifinal.

Pooja and Bhawna got the better of Iranian pair of Mohadeseh Babahabib and Rahimi Ghahderijani Somayeh 6-2 in the women's recurve semifinal.

Paralympic gold-medallist Harvinder Singh and Vijay Sundi defeated their South Koreans opponents 5-4 to advance to the men's doubles recurve final.

India's recurve and compound mixed teams advanced to the semifinals with victories over Thailand and Japan, respectively.

Harvinder and Bhawna defeated their Thai opponents 6-0 in recurve mixed team quarterfinals. Sheetal progressed to the compound mixed team semifinals alongside Toman Kumar, with the Indian pair defeating Japan 154-147.

Among the many wins secured in badminton, world champion Pramod Bhagat and Paralympic gold-winner Kumar Nitesh stood out by assuring themselves of medals after advancing to the men's singles SL3 semifinals.

Bhagat, who will be on the podium for a fifth successive Para Asiad, defeated Japan's Daisuke Fujihara 21-12 21-10 in his quarterfinal match. He will face Korea's Lee Seunghu in the semifinals on Thursday.

Nitesh got the better of compatriot Vikram Kumar 21-8 21-8 to reach the last four stage where he will face Indonesia's Al Muh Imran.