Asian Para Games 2023: India bags 80 medals to overhaul previous best; shooter Sidhartha secures Paris 2024 Paralympics quota

Indian shooter Sidhartha Babu won the gold medal in the R6 Mixed 50m Rifles Prone SH-1, setting a new Asian Para Games record with a remarkable score of 247.7. With this, the ace shooter also secured the Paris 2024 Paralympics quota for India.

Indian shooter Sidhartha Babu won the gold medal in the R6 Mixed 50m Rifles Prone SH-1, setting a new Asian Para Games record. | Photo Credit: SAI

Indian para athletes on Thursday created history by winning the highest number of medals in the Asian Para Games, taking country’s tally to 80, including 18 gold medals.

India have now gone past the earlier best of 72 achieved in the 2018 edition in Indonesia.

India’s medal tally read 18 gold, 23 silver and 39 bonze, and the count will keep on increasing till the end of the fourth day of competitions.

With two more days left in the Games, the country is on course to achieving its target of 100 medals in this Hangzhou edition.

India had won 72 medals (15 gold, 24 silver, 33 bronze) in the last edition in Jakarta which was the best before this Hangzhou Games.

Asian Para Games 2023 medals tally Live Updates

Sachin Sarjerao Khilari won the first gold of the day in men’s F46 shot put with a Games record throw of 16.03m while Rohit Kumar took the bronze with 14.56m.

Para shooter Sidhartha Babu then bagged another gold in R6 mixed 50m rifle prone SH1 event as he shot an Asian Para Games score of 247.7.

The compound mixed team of Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar won a gold after defeating their Chinese counterparts Lin Yueshan and Ai Xinliang 151-149 in the final.

India also won a bronze medal in archery men’s doubles W1 event with the pair of Adil Mohamed Nazir Ansari and Naveen Dalal defeating the Kazakh pair of Nurshat Toleukassym and Sagdat Duisembayev 125-120.

Simran and Bhagyashri Madhavrao Jadhav won a silver each in women’s T12 100m and women’s F34 shot put respectively. Simran clocked 26.12 seconds while Jadhav cleared 7.54m.

Narayan Thakur won a bronze in men’s T35 100m with a time of 14.37 seconds. Shreyansh Trivedi also took a bronze in men’s T37 100m with a time of 12.24 seconds.

In para badminton, Sukant Indukant Kadam (men’s singles SL4), Sivan Nithya Sumathy (women’s singles SH6), Manisha Ramadass (women’s singles SU5), Mandeep Kaur/Manisha Ramadass (women’s doubles SL3-SU5), Krishna Nagar/Sivarajan Solaimalai (men’s doubles SH6) and Pramod Bhagat/Sukant Indukant Kadam (men’s doubles SL3-SL4) won a bronze medal each after losing their respective semifinal matches.

In chess, Bhaveshkumar Rathi Himanshi picked up a bronze in women’s individual standard VI-B1 event.