India’s differently abled athletes created history last week as they finished their campaign at the Para Asian Games in Hangzhou with a record haul of 111 medals, including 29 gold. This was India's biggest-ever medal tally in any major multi-sport event, surpassing the count of 107 won at the recently held Asian Games in the same Chinese city.
On the final day of competitions, India claimed 12 medals, including four gold. Seven medals came from chess, four from athletics and one from rowing. India finished fifth behind hosts China, Iran, Japan and South Korea. China claimed a whopping 521 medals.
India had started taking part in Para Asia in 2010 and won 14 medals. The tally increased to 33 in 2014 and 72 in 2018. India had sent its largest-ever para contingent this year to Hangzhou, comprising 303 athletes (191 male and 112 female).
Sports minister Anurag Thakur hailed the performance and said the government would continue to support the para athletes. “This performance reflects the hard work of our athletes and the introduction of the right policies in sports. Be it the Khelo India scheme or the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) for elite athletes, the support extended through these schemes is indeed showing results now. You will be happy to know that eight Khelo India athletes and 46 TOPS athletes participated at the Games and won 38 medals . Also, the increase of sports budget by three times as compared to 2014 has also given us the ability to extend better support to all our athletes, be it in terms of coaches, training, foreign exposure, diet, infrastructure,” Thakur said.
