What an extraordinary week for Indian Olympic sports, The grace , determination and strength of our para athletes has been memorable and has yielded extraordinary results.
We finished 29-31-51 a total of 111 medals. When compared to our best ever para asian games ( 2018) performance of 15-24-33 total 73 medals Indias performance was really amazing.
Significant moments last week
Shooting Asian championship
In the backdrop of this Para Asian games was the very critical milestone event for Paris 2024 in shooting (able bodied not para ). This was most important for the quota places allocated here.
we have had good success with 4 quota places – 2 in pistol and 2 in rifle, we still have four events left so hopefully we will add to these numbers.
Para Asian games
I am giving our comparison in these games with the 2018 para asians performance. This is given sport by sport in table 1. We can see that we had extraordinary growth in Athletics , many of these athletes broke world records and asian records.
We also had a great haul in Badminton and significant improvements in shooting and archery. These four sports are especially important as the level of the para asian games is high in these sports and some of these sportspeople will surely fly Indian flag high in the paris para Olympics as well.
Besides these Important medals in Chess and canoeing helped India clinch a very good 5th place on the overall medal chart,( you can see the full medal table here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Asian_Para_Games_medal_table) I did predict that India would most likely come 5th in the para Asians and happily the prediction came true.
Only swimming was a bit of disappointment compared to 2018. But new sports for India like canoeing , rowing , taekwondo and Judo helped us reach the very critical Iss barr sau parr challenge in the para Asians as well.
While the numbers tell a story of the triumphs by Indian para athletes in the games. They do not show us the real picture of the tremendous effort and faith it takes for us to win a medal. Watching atheletes like neeraj yadav , sumit antil , sandeep singh, pramod bhagat etc tells you about the effort they put despite their disabilities to become world class .
I am sending a video of one of our extraordinary para athletes the armless archer -sheetal who helped us win the two golds in compound archery.
Interesting she competes without arms against archers who are paralyzed below the waist, Watching her gives me the chills. This video reflects a little of the effort and faith it takes to overcome financial and physical obstacles that para sportspeople face. It will tell you what it takes to get India medals at these games .
The 2023 ASEAN Para Games, officially known as the 12th ASEAN Para Games, and commonly known as Cambodia 2023, was an biennial Southeast Asian multi-sport event for athletes with disabilities held from 3 to 9 June 2023 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was the first time that Cambodia hosted the ASEAN Para Games. Celebrated in the tradition of the ASEAN Para Games as governed by the ASEAN Para Sports Federation (APSF).
I salute the men and women in blue for helping India achieve this truly remarkable feat Jai Hind.