- Monday, March 10, 2025
In the previous games in Tokyo, Indian paralympic athletes recorded their best-ever tally with 19 medals
By: Shajil Kumar
AS INDIAN para-athletes travel to France to take part in the paralympics, we recount their past glories.
India has sent their largest-ever contingent of 84 para-athletes for the Paris Paralympic Games, which kicks off on August 28.
In the previous games in Tokyo, they recorded their best-ever tally with 19 medals.
Indian paralympic athletes took part for the first time in 1968 at Tel Aviv in Israel.
India won its first medal in the subsequent Heidelberg Paralympics, when swimmer Murlikant Petkar won a gold medal.
Petkar also achieved a milestone of setting a world record in the 50m freestyle swimming event with a timing of 37.33 seconds.
India did not take part in the two subsequent games at Toronto (1976) and Arnhem, Netherlands (1980).
In the 1984 Games at Stoke Mandeville/New York, Joginder Singh Bedi became the first para-athlete to win multiple medals in the same edition.
He took part in the shot put, javelin and discus throw and won medals in all the events. He won silver for shot put and bronze for javelin and discus throw.
In javelin throw, Bhimrao Kesarkar won a silver medal for India, taking country’s tally to four in the games.
India continued to send its contingent in the subsequent games, but they failed to win medals until 2004 in Athens.
Devendra Jhajharia became second gold medallist from India at the paralympics when he clinched the top slot in men’s javelin throw. Powerlifter Rajinder Singh Rahelu won the bronze.
India again drew a blank at the Beijing paralympic games in 2008.
In the subsequent London games, India opened its account when Girish Nagarajegowda won silver in the high jump.
In the 2016 Rio de Janeiro paralympics, Deepa Malik became the first Indian woman to win a medal, when she bagged a silver in the shot put.
Meanwhile, Jhajharia won his second gold medal in Javelin and became the first India para-athlete to win two gold medals at the Paralympics.
India attained a tally of four medals with two of them coming from men’s high jump. Mariyappan Thangavelu bagged the gold, while Varun Singh Bhati settled for silver.
In Tokyo, India recorded its best-ever performance by winning 19 medals, including five gold, and was ranked 24th.
One of the highlights was shooter Avani Lekhara winning two medals and becoming the first Indian woman to win an individual gold.
The other gold medal winners include Sumit Antil (javelin), Manish Narwal (Shooting, mixed 50m pistol), Pramod Bhagat and Krishna Nagar (badminton).
Jhajharia and Thangavelu once again brought glory to the country by winning silver in javelin and high jump respectively.
