Deepthi, Nishad make it a day to remember for India

Once Deepthi Jeevanji crossed the finish line, she bent over to catch her breath for a few moments. Once she got back up, her facial expression betrayed no real emotion. It was the same look she carried at the start of her race at the 2026 Asian Para Games on Tuesday. She sprinted through the course of the lap in the women’s 400m T20 final at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium.

This was not, however, unexpected. Deepthi competes in the T20 sprinting event which is designated for athletes with intellectual impairments. It’s a condition that her parents had said did not allow her to ever be truly expressive of her feelings.

On Tuesday though, the 23-year-old did what she does best – she let her performance do the talking for her. And a mighty fine performance it was.

The gold medallist from the previous edition in Hangzhou in 2023, blazed through the track in the final at the ongoing Games in Aichi-Nagoya, clocking 56.36s – over two seconds faster than second-placed Niina Kanno of Japan who finished with 58.92s – to set a new Asian Para Games record.

This came just a day after she had broken the Games record, setting the new mark at 57.57s in the heats.

Deepthi’s medal was the first gold of a day in which the Indian contingent continued to dominate across events at the 2026 Asian Para Games, as India won five gold, six silver and 13 bronze to take the total tally to 35 medals.

For Deepthi, the latest medal adds to her growing list of accolades that now includes two Asian Para Games gold medals, a gold and silver World Championship medal, and a bronze won at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. Not a bad return from someone whose parents had once been pressured by villagers to abandon her as a child.

Deepthi was born with an intellectual disability to a poor farming family in the village of Kalleda in the Warangal district of Telangana. Villagers would taunt her and her family and often told her parents to send her to an orphanage.

By the time she was 15 however, her school Physical Education teacher spotted her flair for sprinting. Word of her talent reached N Ramesh, the junior national athletics coach and Dronacharya Awardee, who had previously trained 100m national record holder Dutee Chand.

Under his tutelage, Deepthi’s sprint career started to take shape. But it also took the involvement of national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand.

Gopichand had told Ramesh to have her tested at the National Institute for the Empowerment of Person with Intellectual Disability in Hyderabad, where they trained. The tests declared that she could compete in the T20 category at para athletic meets, setting her on the course to becoming one of the many trailblazers in the sport in India.

Another Indian who continued to break barriers on Tuesday was Nishad Kumar.

A high jumper by expertise, he expanded his horizons on the first day of the Asian Para Games when he won gold in the men’s T47 long jump event. On Day 2 though, in his pet event that has seen him win back-to-back silver medals at the Tokyo and Paris Paralympics, the reigning World Championship gold medallist defended his T47 high jump crown. He jumped 1.98m to ensure the gold, but then raised the bar to set a new Asian Para Games record by clearing 2.04m.

While Nishad picked up his second Asian Para Games gold medal, visually impaired sprinter Simran Sharma won her first. A silver medallist in the women’s 100m T12 and 200m T12 events at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games, she went one better this time. Paired with Shivam, on Tuesday she equalled the Games record by clocking 24.8s to win gold in the women’s 200m T12 race.

In the men’s discus throw, there were a few more gold medals in store across categories. In the F51-53 event, Pranav Soorma and Ram Ratan Singh made it a gold-silver finish for India. Soorma, who had won gold in the men’s F51 club throw event at the previous edition – also winning silver in the same event at the Paris Paralympics – set the new Asian record in the discus event with an effort of 11.66. Ram Ratan’s effort of 10.35 earned him the silver medal.

Meanwhile in the men’s F43/F44/F62/F64 discus final, Devender Kumar, Rakesh and Pardeep Kumar made a clean sweep of the podium places. However, there were only four competitors in the event, with Indonesia’s Reza Angin finishing in fourth.

In other para athletics events, Preeti Pal won silver in the women’s 200m T35 event. In the men’s F53/F54 javelin throw, Pradeep Kumar won silver and Ayush Verma clinched bronze. Powerlifter Ashok Malik also took home silver in the men’s 65kg event, as did shooter Manish Narwal, who finished second in the men’s 10m air pistol SH1 final.

In the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 final, Shrishti Arora won bronze, along with Praveen Sharma in the men’s shot put F11 final and Paris Paralympics bronze medallist Hokato Hotozhe Sema, who also won bronze in the men’s shot put F56/57 final.

There were also two bronze medals in swimming, courtesy Himanshu Nandal (men’s 400m freestyle S11) and Niranjan Mukundan (men’s 200m individual medley SM7).

And in the singles across the table tennis events, India won five bronze medals through Sonalben Patel (women’s singles Class 3), Bhavina Patel (women’s singles Class 4-5), Prachi Pandey (women’s singles Class 6), Sahana Ravi (women’s singles Class 9) and men’s singles Class 1 competitor Jehan Madan.