Asian Para Games 2026: India’s medal tally rises to 35 as athletics leads gold rush
New Delhi: Experienced athletes Nishad Kumar and Deepti Jeevanji delivered brilliant performances, while the new entrants also showed promise as India’s campaign gained momentum on Tuesday, October 20. Athletics led the charge on Day 2 of the continental event, contributing all five of the country’s gold medals, with Nishad emerging as one of the standout performers.
After his T47 long jump gold on Monday, Nishad secured first place in the high jump, becoming only the third Indian to clinch gold in two events of a single Para Asiad. He also broke the Games record with his 2.04m jump. India are currently placed sixth on the tally with 35 medals, including nine gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze.
Deepthi set the pace quite early by clinching a second consecutive gold medal in the women’s 400m T20 event after clocking a Games record time of 56.36sec. Simran (women’s 200m T12), wheelchair-bound Pranav Soorma (F51/52/53 discus throw) and Devender Kumar (F44/64 discus throw) also won gold medals.
Paralympic bronze medallist Simran overcame fatigue, which was reportedly caused by the lack of vegetarian food options in Nagoya, to break the Games record with a time of 24.80 seconds. Debutant Tejalben Damor won the bronze in the same event with a personal best of 25.23 seconds in the category for athletes with moderate visual impairment.
Preeti Pal also won a silver in the women’s 200m T35 event. Praveen Sharma (men’s shot put F11), Ayush Verma (men’s javelin F53/54), and Hokato Hotozhe Sema (men’s shot put F56/57) clinched bronze medals in their respective events.
The Indians secured all three medals in the men’s discus throw F44/64 event, with Devender Kumar clinching gold in a four-athlete field. He won the gold with a throw of 49.71m, while Rakesh and Pardeep Kumar claimed the silver and bronze, respectively.
India adds silver medals in shooting and powerlifting
Manish Narwal won silver and booked a 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics quota spot for India, while debutant Shrishti Arora secured a bronze as shooters clinched two medals in the men’s and women’s 10m air pistol SH1 events.
The Indian shooting contingent took its medal tally to four after two days of competition, including one gold, two silver and a bronze. Narwal, who is a 2024 Paris Paralympics silver medallist and an Arjuna awardee, shot 233.7 in the final to finish in second position behind South Korea’s Jo Jeongdu.
Powerlifter Ashok Kumar Malik also secured a silver medal in the men’s 65kg competition, upgrading his bronze from the last edition. The 37-year-old from Gohana in Sonipat district lifted a best of 192kg.
Bronze medal in table tennis, swimming
Indian swimmers Himanshu Nandal and Niranjan Mukundan secured two bronze medals for the country. Himanshu, who was born blind due to an optic nerve failure, clocked a time of 5:10.91 to finish third in the four-swimmer field in the men’s 400m freestyle S11 event.
Niranjan also claimed a bronze in the men’s 200m individual medley SM7 event with a time of 2:57.01. In the table tennis competition, Bhavina Patel (women’s singles, Class 4-5), Sonalben Patel (women’s singles, Class 3), Prachi Pandey (women’s singles, Class 6), Sahana Ravi (women’s singles, Class 9) and Jehan Madan (men’s singles, Class 1) each won a bronze medal.