NEW DELHI: India's differently abled athletes made history on Saturday as they finished their campaign at the in Hangzhou with a record haul of , including 29 gold.
This was the country's biggest-ever medal tally in any major multisport event, surpassing the count of 107 won at the recently-held
Asian Games in the same Chinese city. The only other instance when India crossed the 100-medal mark at a major multisport meet was the 101 medals won at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010.
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 China, Iran, Japan and South Korea. China claimed 521 medals, including 214 gold to take top spot.
Performance reflects hard work of our athletes: Thakur 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). Out of the 111 medals won, female athletes won 40 medals, which is 36% of the overall count. India had sent 190 athletes to the 2018 Para Asiad.
Sports minister Anurag Thakur hailed the performance and said the government wiould 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 at the grassroot levels 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 a total of 38 medals out of 111. 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," he said.
"The spectacular performance of athletes at the Asian Games as well as these Para Asiad and the last Olympics, Paralympics, CWG and Deaflympics goes to show that India's power in sports is growing," he added.
Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) president, Deepa Malik, said in a video message from Hangzhou that the country's unprecedented medal show has given hope that the para-athletes will shine with more podium finishes at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. "We have made history, our para-athletes have made the country proud. We will win more medals at the Paris Paralympics than in Tokyo," she said.
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