India finished the first full day of competition at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya with 11 medals: four gold, five silver and two bronze. The tally was recorded on 19 October, a day after the fifth edition of the Games officially opened in Nagoya, Japan.
The event runs from 18 to 24 October and brings together athletes and officials from 45 National Paralympic Committees. Competition is scheduled across 18 para sports, with 492 medal events. India is competing in 11 sports. The medal count reported on Sunday is an early Games snapshot, rather than a final placing or an indication of the eventual overall table.
The opening ceremony took place at Nagoya City Mizuho Athletic Stadium on 18 October. Japan’s Emperor Naruhito declared the Games open, after which Momoka Muraoka, Maya Nakanishi and Katsumi Miyake lit the cauldron. The ceremony marked the formal start of the fifth Asian Para Games, although some competitions had begun before it. That distinction is important when assessing the first-day tally: the results reflect an event already under way, not the end of the programme.
India’s first gold came in women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1, where Mona Agarwal scored 250.0. Avani Lekhara took silver with 249.6, giving India a one-two finish in the event. The pair’s result accounted for two of the team’s opening-day medals and placed shooting among the sports in which India made an immediate contribution.
India arrived after its strongest Asian Para Games campaign to date. At Hangzhou in 2023, the country won 111 medals: 29 gold, 31 silver and 51 bronze. It finished fifth in the standings, and that total exceeded its previous best of 72 medals at Jakarta in 2018. Those earlier results provide context for the size of the delegation’s current programme, but they do not determine the outcome in Japan.
Para athletics produced three more gold medals. Nishad Kumar won the men’s long jump T47 with a best effort of 7.11m. In the men’s javelin F46 final, Rinku won gold with 65.11m, and Ajeet Singh took silver with 65.02m. The two throws were separated by nine centimetres. Soumya won the women’s 1,500m T12/T13 in 5 minutes 12.39 seconds, while Radha Venkatesh earned silver in 5 minutes 30.90 seconds. Ravanni Valasanaini received bronze in the women’s 1,500m T11 after a disqualification altered the result.
Elsewhere, Kokila won silver in the women’s J2 -52kg para judo competition, and Kapil Parmar collected bronze in the men’s J1 -70kg event. Ravi Karthik Budigina added silver in the men’s 100m freestyle S13, finishing in 56.68 seconds. Those results took India’s opening tally to six medals in para athletics, two in para shooting, two in para judo and one in para swimming.
The programme continues in Nagoya across venues in Aichi Prefecture, with more medal events still to be decided before the closing ceremony on 24 October. India’s athletes began the competition with medal performances in track and field, shooting, judo and swimming, but the standings remain subject to further events and any formal changes to individual results. The early total therefore marks a strong start to the campaign, not its conclusion.
