Hangzhou: Indian para-athletes on Thursday created history by winning the highest number of medals in the Asian Para Games, taking the country's tally to 82, including 18 golds. India have now gone past the earlier best of 72 medals achieved in the 2018 edition in Indonesia. India added 18 medals, including three golds, on Thursday. India's medals tally stood at 18 golds, 23 silver and 41 bronze at the end of the fourth day of competitions.
India's position in the medals tally, however, dropped two places to eight, as not too many gold medals were won on Thursday. South Korea and Indonesia moved ahead of India in the medals tally led by China (156 gold, 128 silver, 108 bronze). With two more days left in the Games, the country is on course to achieving its target of 100 medals in this edition of the Games. India had won 72 medals (15 gold, 24 silver, 33 bronze) in the last edition in Jakarta which was the best before the Hangzhou Games. Eight medals, including one gold, were won by track and field athletes on Thursday. Overall, athletics contributed 45 medals out of India's total of 82, and 14 gold medals out of the country's total of 18 so far.
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Sachin Sarjerao Khilari won the first gold of the day in men's F46 shot put with a Games record throw of 16.03m while Rohit Kumar took the bronze with 14.56m. Para shooter Sidhartha Babu then bagged another gold in the R6 mixed 50m rifle prone SH1 event as he shot an Asian Para Games score of 247.7. The compound mixed team of Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar won gold after defeating their Chinese counterparts Lin Yueshan and Ai Xinliang 151-149 in the final.
India also won a bronze medal in the archery men's doubles W1 event with the pair of Adil Mohamed Nazir Ansari and Naveen Dalal defeating the Kazakh pair of Nurshat Toleukassym and Sagdat Duisembayev 125-120. Simran and Bhagyashri Madhavrao Jadhav won a silver each in women's T12 100m and women's F34 shot put respectively. Simran clocked 26.12 seconds while Jadhav cleared 7.54m.
Monu Ghangas also picked up a silver in the men's F11 discus throw with an effort of 37.87m. Narayan Thakur won a bronze in men's T35 100m with a time of 14.37 seconds. Shreyansh Trivedi also took a bronze in men's T37 100m with a time of 12.24 seconds. Muthuraja also won a bronze in the men's F55 shot put with a throw of 10.42m.
In para-badminton, Sukant Indukant Kadam (men's singles SL4), Sivan Nithya Sumathy (women's singles SH6), Manisha Ramadass (women's singles SU5), Mandeep Kaur/Manisha Ramadass (women's doubles SL3-SU5), Krishna Nagar/Sivarajan Solaimalai (men's doubles SH6) and Pramod Bhagat/Sukant Indukant Kadam (men's doubles SL3-SL4) won a bronze medal each after losing their respective semifinal matches.
In chess, Bhaveshkumar Rathi Himanshi picked up a bronze in the women's individual standard VI-B1 event.
