SportsPara Sport
Dilip Gavit completes sprint double, Solairaj defends long jump title as India reach 88 medals
India's para athletes added four more golds in Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday, including a high jump podium sweep led by Shailesh Kumar, to finish the day on 21 golds.
Key points
- Dilip Gavit won the 400m T47 in 48.27 seconds to add to his 100m title.
- Solairaj Dharmaraj defended his long jump crown with a Games record 7.15m.
- India ended Thursday with 88 medals: 21 gold, 26 silver and 41 bronze.
Dilip Gavit completed a sprint double at the Asian Para Games on Thursday, winning the men’s 400m T47 in 48.27 seconds to go with his 100m title, as India’s medal count in Aichi-Nagoya climbed to 88.
Gavit, who was defending the title he won in Hangzhou in 2023, was one of four Indian gold medallists in the athletics stadium on a day when Sheetal Devi’s archery golds had already set the mood.
Solairaj Dharmaraj also kept hold of his crown. He won the men’s long jump T44/T62/T64 with 7.15m, a Games record. In the women’s 400m T47, Anjanaben Bumbadiya took gold in 59.97 seconds, with Jayanti Behera making it an Indian one-two in 1:00.65.
The men’s high jump T63 was an all-Indian podium. Shailesh Kumar won with a Games record of 1.89m, ahead of Varun Bhati on 1.84m and Rahul on 1.81m.
Medals in the pool and on court
India’s swimmers chipped in too. Kapil Kumar took silver in the men’s 400m freestyle S10 in 4:38.44, behind Japan’s Akito Minai. Ravi Karthik Budigina, already a double silver medallist, won bronze in the 50m freestyle S13 in 25.89 seconds, and Tejas Nandkumar (100m backstroke S7) and Swastik Patil (breaststroke SB9) added bronzes.
On the track, Tejalben Damor won silver in the women’s 400m T12 and Ravanni Valasanaini took bronze in the T11 event, edging China’s Huang Zhenli by seven hundredths of a second. In para badminton, Manisha Ramadass won bronze in the women’s singles SU5 after losing her semi-final to compatriot Thulasimathi Murugesan, and Surya Kant Yadav and Naveen Sivakumar took bronze in the men’s doubles.
India finished the day with 21 gold, 26 silver and 41 bronze medals.