Paris: Battered by life but not beaten by its many challenges, an 84-strong contingent of Indian para-athletes, the largest ever in the country’s history and a heady mix of youth and experience, would be eyeing an unparalleled gold rush when the Paralympic Games begin here on Wednesday.
India won a record 19 medals, including five gold, in the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021 for a 24th-place finish in the overall rankings. Three years on, the country’s target is more than 25 medals with a double-digit haul in gold.
What has fuelled this ambition is the size of the contingent and the exceptional performances in the past one year.
India won a record 111 medals, including 29 gold, at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games last year.
This was followed by unprecedented success at the World Para Athletics Championships in May where the country snared 17 medals, including half a dozen gold for a sixth-place finish in the overall standings.
Several medal winners in Hangzhou are in this Paralympics team, including top stars like world record-holding javelin thrower Sumit Antil (F64) and rifle shooter Avani Lekhara (10m Air Rifle Standing SH1). Both of them would be defending their gold medals won in Tokyo.
The Games, as much a celebration of sporting skills as human endurance, club athletes with similar functional abilities in terms of movement, coordination and balance into various classifications. The “degree and nature of their eligible impairments” decide these groups.
For India, the para-athletics team has been a major medal giver in the past and this time too, it is expected to be the biggest contributor with as many as 38 names in fray.
Other top medal contenders include the likes of para-archer Sheetal Devi, who shoots with her legs as she was born without arms, landmine blast survivors Hokato Sema (shot putter) and Narayana Konganapalle (rower) and several other accident amputees.
India is competing in 12 sports this time, as against nine by a 54-member team in Tokyo.
Shooter Manish Narwal and shuttler Krishna Nagar are also among those who would be looking to defend their gold medals won in Tokyo.
Antil, whose left leg was amputated owing to an accident when he was 17, had also won gold in the para world championships in May and he is hoping to cross the 75m mark in Paris at the same venue where his able-bodied counterpart Neeraj Chopra won an Olympic silver earlier this month.
Lekhara was the best performer in Tokyo with one gold and a bronze and one of the two athletes to win two medals, the other being Singhraj Adhana (silver and bronze). Adhana, however, could not make the current team.
Lekhara was the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold medal. She is now primed to join the club of three medal winners in the Paralympics.
Current Paralympics Committee of India (PCI) President Devendra Jhajharia, a javelin thrower, is the most decorated Indian Paralympian with two gold (2004 Athens and 2016 Rio) and a silver (2021 Tokyo).
Joginder Singh Bedi won three medals in the 1984 Paralympics (silver in shot put, a bronze each in javelin and discus throw).
Deepthi Jeevanji (women’s 400m T20; intellectual disability), Rio Olympics gold-medallist Mariyappan Thangavelu (men’s high jump – T63), whose right leg was disabled after being run over by a bus, and Yogesh Kathuniya (men’s Discus Throw – F56), born with a neurological disorder that damaged his nervous system, would be also aiming to add to their existing Paralympic medal tally.
Shuttler Krishna Nagar (men’s singles SH6), who has overcome the disadvantage of his short height, is also looking good to defend his gold medal won in Tokyo, more so after winning the title in the World Para Badminton Championships in Thailand in February.
The other gold winner in Tokyo, Pramod Bhagat, is, however, serving suspension after whereabouts failure.
Suhas Yathiraj (Men’s Singles SL4 and Mixed Doubles SL3-SU5), who won a silver in Tokyo, will again be a medal contender.
In para-archery, Sheetal and Harvinder Singh will be among the medal contenders. Harvinder had won a bronze in Tokyo in men’s individual recurve open.
Sheetal, the first and the only international para archery champion without upper limbs, bagged two gold medals in a stunning performance in the Asian Para Games in women’s in individual compound and mixed doubles, and a silver in the women’s doubles compound event.
In table tennis, after winning a silver in class 4 event in Tokyo, Bhavinaben Patel will hope to better the colour of the medal. The wheelchair-bound player is competing in women’s singles S4 and women’s doubles D10 events.
Antil and shot putter Bhagyashri Jadhav, who won a silver in the F34 event in Asian Para Games, will be the joint flag bearers at Wednesday’s Opening Ceremony to be held outside a stadium for the first time in the history of Paralympic Games.
