It will be a historic Paralympics for India as the country will field its largest-ever team, with 54 athletes set to compete in nine sports.
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Gursharan Singh, India’s Chef de Mission for the Tokyo Paralympics, was full of confidence ahead of the competition on Friday. He said that the country would produce its best-ever performance at the Paralympics this year and will bring home at least 15 medals, including five gold medals. It will be a historic Paralympics for India as the country will field its largest-ever team, with 54 athletes set to compete in nine sports including Para Archery, Para Athletics, Para Badminton, Para Canoeing, Shooting Para sport, Para Swimming, Para Powerlifting, Para Table Tennis and Para Taekwondo. The confidence of Singh, in part, comes from the country’s brilliant performance at the recently concluded Olympics, but mostly it is his faith in the para-athletes.
“I am confident that these would be our best ever Paralympic Games. Our Para-athletes have worked very hard in the past years and shown great results in international competitions. They are raring to go for the Games,” Singh, who is also the secretary-general of the Paralympic Committee of India, said in a press release. “We are expecting around 15 medals including 5 golds at these Games. We have high medal hopes in Para Athletics, Para Badminton, Para Shooting and Para Archery,” he added.
India has a decent record at the Paralympics. The country has won a total of 12 medals including four gold in 11 Paralympic Games appearances so far. If Singh’s predictions do come to pass, it will be an absolutely monumental feat for the country’s para-athletes. The first batch of the Indian team, led by PCI President Deepa Malik, has already arrived in Tokyo. The Indian flag-bearer, T Mariyappan, has also landed in the Japanese capital. A lot of hopes will be pinned on the high jumper to win his second Paralympics gold medal. Recently, he recorded a brilliant leap of 1.86 meters at the National selection trials.
“It was one of my best performances (at selection trials) since Rio 2016,” said Mariyappan. “I had an ankle injury in 2017 and it took some time to heal. It’s been a while since I had been looking to get my old rhythm back. And I believe I have got it back now. I feel I am ready for the Games. I will aim for the gold,” the para-athlete added.
The other medal-favorite for India, of course, is javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia (F46). The para-athlete has already won the gold twice in the past and will be looking to make it three. Recently, he was quite inspired by Neeraj Chopra’s performance at the Olympics and will hope that he can also deliver at that level. Reigning world champion Sundar Singh Gurjar and Ajeet Singh (also in F46), world champion and world record holder in F64 Sandeep Chaudhary and Navdeep Singh (F41) are others who would be ones to watch out for in Para Javelin.
The para-badminton player Pramod Bhagat, who is also the reigning world champion, is also a medal favorite in the men’s SL3 event. World no. 2 shuttler Krishna Nagar (SH6) and Tarun Dhillon (SL4) are the others in the sport who are expected to do well. In archery, India will have the likes of Rakesh Kumar and Shyam Sundar (compound), Vivek Chikara and Harvinder Singh (recurve), and woman archer Jyoti Baliyan (compound individual /mixed event).
