Asian Para Games 2026: Ravi Budigina wins silver, Himanshu Nandal bags second bronze in para swimming

India’s Himanshu Nandal, who has been completely visually impaired since birth due to an optic nerve failure, clocked 1:20.72 seconds in the men’s 100m Breaststroke SB11 final. | Photo Credit: SAI

Indian swimmer Ravi Budigina won a silver medal in the men’s 100m backstroke S13 event, while Himanshu Nandal clinched his second bronze at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games on Wednesday.

Ravi clocked 1:10.10 seconds to finish second in a four-swimmer field. Uzbekistan’s Egor Bolotov won gold in an Asian record time of 58.43s, while Chinese Taipei’s Feng-Yuan Yeh took bronze in 1:12.05s.

The S13 is for athletes with the least severe visual impairment among eligible competitors.

It is his second silver medal of the current edition, having finished second in the men’s 100m freestyle S13 event on Monday.

The 18-year-old Budigina, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, had won three gold and three silver medals at the 2025 Asian Youth Para Games in Dubai.

Nandal clinched his second bronze medal, finishing third in the men’s 100m breaststroke SB11 event.

The 22-year-old from Rohtak, Haryana, who has been completely visually impaired since birth due to an optic nerve failure, clocked 1:20.72 seconds. China’s Yang Bozun won the gold in a Games-record time of 1:12.69s, while Japan’s Keiichi Kimura took silver in 1:12.72s.

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Himanshu had opened his medal account on Tuesday, clocking 5:10.91s to finish third in a four-swimmer field in the men’s 400m freestyle S11 event.

Having come from a family with a sporting background, Himanshu was inspired by his father, who played hockey at the national level. He moved to Delhi at the age of four and joined the National Association for the Blind, where he learned Braille.

A political science graduate from Delhi University’s Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, Himanshu initially took up judo and won medals at the national level before switching to swimming in 2021.

In 2024, he became the first Indian blind swimmer to achieve the Minimum Qualification Standard for the Paris Paralympics.

The S11 classification in para swimming is for athletes with severe visual impairment, including those with very low visual acuity or no light perception.