SportsPara Sport
India pick 168 athletes for Asian Para Games, barely half the Hangzhou squad
Pramod Bhagat and Bhavina Patel will carry the flag in Aichi-Nagoya, where India will compete in 11 sports after tight quotas and a late selection process cut the team.
Key points
- India will send 168 athletes, 112 men and 56 women, to the Asian Para Games in Japan from 18 October.
- Para-athletics has the biggest group with 62 athletes, down from 123 in Hangzhou.
- The Sports Ministry has decided not to field teams in seven sports, including wheelchair basketball and goalball.
India will send 168 athletes to the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, a squad little more than half the size of the one that went to Hangzhou three years ago.
The contingent, named on Tuesday, has 112 men and 56 women across 11 sports. They will be supported by 98 team officials and 15 contingent staff. The Games, the fifth edition, run from 18 to 24 October, with 45 nations competing for medals in 492 events across 18 sports.
Badminton player Pramod Bhagat, a Tokyo Paralympic gold medallist, and table tennis player Bhavina Patel will be India’s flagbearers at the opening ceremony.
Familiar names lead the way
The squad is built around India’s best-known para athletes. Avani Lekhara, also a gold medallist in Tokyo, is in the 13-member para-shooting team. Archer Sheetal Devi is in the 11-strong para-archery group, and Bhagat is part of a 28-member badminton squad, the second-largest in the contingent.
Para-athletics remains the backbone of the team with 62 athletes, followed by badminton with 28 and swimming with 16. Shooting, archery and table tennis each have between 10 and 13 places, and India will also field a full ten-member squad in football 5-a-side, the game for visually impaired players.
At the other end of the list, eight powerlifters and seven judokas make the trip, along with two boccia players and a single para-cyclist.
Why the team is smaller
India sent 309 athletes to Hangzhou. The biggest cut this time is in athletics, where the Olympic Council of Asia initially allotted India only 60 quota places, against the 123 athletes India took to China. The Paralympic Committee of India secured two more spots, taking the athletics squad to 62.
The ministry has also chosen not to send teams in seven sports: taekwondo, goalball, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair rugby.
Between the tighter quotas and the dropped sports, India will have 141 fewer athletes than in Hangzhou. The selection itself ran late, and some places are still unsettled. Court appeals are pending in a few sports, so the final numbers could change before the team flies out.
What comes next
The opening ceremony is on 18 October, and competition runs for a week. With fewer entries than in Hangzhou, India’s medal hopes will rest largely on the athletics squad and on proven names such as Bhagat, Lekhara and Sheetal Devi.