India witnessed its best-ever performance in the Games in the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics 2021. With one gold medal, two silver and four bronze -t his was a brilliant performance by the Indian athletes.
However, now it’s time to shift the attention to the Tokyo Paralympics. The 2020 Paralympics was also delayed by a year due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The multi-sporting event has been finalised and is set to begin on August 24 in the Japanese capital.
India witnessed its most successful Paralympics at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 with two golds, one silver and one bronze medal. Mariyappan Thangavelu, the high jumper who won gold in 2016 will be the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
WHEN ARE THE PARALYMPICS STARTING?
The Tokyo 2021 Paralympics will be starting on August 24 and will end on September 16.
HOW MANY INDIAN ATHLETES ARE PARTICIPATING?
54 Indian athletes will be competing in nine different events- archery, athletics, badminton, shooting, table tennis, para canoeing, swimming, powerlifting and taekwondo.
WHERE WILL THE GAMES BE BROADCASTED?
Fans can watch the Paralympics on DD Sports. DD will have broadcasting rights across cable and DTH service providers.
Viewers can also live stream on EUROSPORT and EUROSPORT HD platforms.
FULL SCHEDULE OF INDIAN ATHLETES
Archery – August 27
Men’s Recurve Individual Open – Harvinder Singh, Vivek Chikara
Men’s Compound Individual Open – Rakesh Kumar, Shyam Sundar Swami
Women’s Compound Individual Open – Jyoti Baliyan
Compound Mixed Team Open – Jyoti Baliyan & TBA
*Athletics
August 28
Men’s Javelin Throw F57 – Ranjeet Bhati
August 29
Men’s Discus Throw F52 – Vinod Kumar
Men’s High Jump T47 – Nishad Kumar, Ram Pal
August 30
Men’s Discus Throw F56 – Yogesh Kathuniya
Men’s Javelin Throw F46 – Sundar Singh Gurjar, Ajeet Singh, Devendra Jhajharia
Men’s Javelin Throw F64 – Sumit Antil, Sandeep Choudhary
August 31
Men’s High Jump T63 – Sharad Kumar, Mariyappan Thangavelu, Varun Singh Bhati
Women’s 100m T13 – Simran Sharma
Women’s Shot Put F34 – Bhagyashri Madavrao Jadhav
September 1
Men’s Club Throw F51 – Dharambir Nain, Amit Kumar Saroha
September 2
Men’s Shot Put F35 – Arvind Malik
September 3
Men’s High Jump T64 – Praveen Kumar
Men’s Javelin Throw F54 – Tek Chand
Men’s Shot Put F57 – Soman Rana
Women’s Club Throw F51 – Ekta Bhyan, Kashish Lakra
September 4
Men’s Javelin Throw F41 – Navdeep Singh
*Swimming
August 27
200 Individual Medley SM7 – Suyash Jadhav
September 3
50m Butterfly S7 – Suyash Jadhav, Niranjan Mukundan
*Badminton
September 1
Men’s Singles SL3 – Pramod Bhagat, Manoj Sarkar
Women’s Singles SU5 – Palak Kohli
Mixed Doubles SL3-SU5 – Pramod Bhagat & Palak Kohli
2 September
Men’s Singles SL4 – Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj, Tarun Dhillon
Men’s Singles SS6 – Krishna Nagar
Women’s Singles SL4 – Parul Parmar
Women’s Doubles SL3-SU5 – Parul Parmar & Palak Kohli
*Para Canoeing
September 2
Women’s VL2 – Prachi Yadav
*Powerlifting
August 27
Men’s 65kg – Jaideep Deswal
Women’s 50kg – Sakina Khatun
*Shooting
August 30
Men’s R1 – 10 m air rifle standing SH1 – Swaroop Mahavir Unhalkar, Deepak Saini
Women’s R2 – 10 m air rifle SH1 – Avani Lekhara
August 31
Men’s P1 – 10 m air pistol SH1 – Manish Narwal, Deepender Singh, Singhraj
Women’s P2 – 10 m air pistol SH1 – Rubina Francis
September 4
Mixed R3 – 10 m air rifle prone SH1 – Deepak Saini, Sidhartha Babu & Avani Lekhara
September 2
Mixed P3 – 25 m pistol SH1 – Akash & Rahul Jakhar
September 3
Men’s R7 – 50 m rifle 3 positions SH1 – Deepak Saini
Women’s R8 – 50 m rifle 3 positions SH1 – Avani Lekhara
September 4
Mixed P4 – 50 m pistol SH1 – Akash, Manish Narwal & Singhraj
September 5
Mixed R6 – 50 m rifle prone SH1 – Deepak Saini, Avani Lekhara & Sidhartha Babu
*Table Tennis
August 25
Individual C3 – Sonalben Madhubhai Patel
Individual C4 – Bhavina Hasmukhbhai Patel
*Taekwondo
September 2
Women’s K44 -49kg – Aruna Tanwar
*Past Performance of Indian athletes
Paralympics Games medals
2012- 1
2016- 4
Asian Paralympics Games Medals
2010- 14
2014-33
2018-72
Para shooting World Cup And World championship
2017-9
2018-7
2019-19
2020- No competition due to Covid 19
2021- 8( Less competition due to Covid 19)
Para Badminton Medals
2015- 12
2017-10
2019-12
World Para Athletics Championships (Senior and Junior)
2017- 5 (Seniors) ; 5 (Junior)
2019 – 23(Senior); 9(Junior)
Sponsorship and Brand Deals:
One of the primary sponsors of the Indian contingent is GoSports foundation which is a non-profit organization. GoSports has been associated with the Indian Paralympics team for a very long time and has also invested in the past.
“At this stage, I will just say we should all prepare to be pleasantly surprised by how our team will do. From what I have seen, while there has been work done towards equity for para-athletes, there remains lots more to do on multiple fronts. With India having one of the largest disabled populations in the world, it is also a significant opportunity to change thousands of lives through sport,” said Nandan Kamath, managing trustee of GoSports.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that top tier sponsors have extended their support to the Paralympics as well. Five sponsors which include- Atos, Panasonic, Samsung, Toyota and Visa – also serve as worldwide Paralympic partners, together with Allianz and BP, which have inked deals only with the Paralympic committee.