Deepthi Jeevanji wins women's 400m T20 gold at Asian Para Games in Nagoya
Deepthi Jeevanji clinched the gold in the women's 400m T20 at the Asian Para Games in Nagoya on October 20, 2026, setting a Games record of 56.36sec. Japan’s Niina Kanno took silver in 58.92sec and Akane Kato claimed bronze in 1:00.26sec.
The 23-year-old Deepthi, from Telangana, is a two-time Para World Championships medallist and won gold at the 2024 World Championships; she is also a Paralympic bronze medallist in the same event. The T20 classification covers athletes with intellectual impairments who experience challenges with processing information, concentration and executing race plans or tactical strategies.
In the men's javelin F53/54, Pradeep Kumar secured his second successive silver medal with a personal best throw of 27.45m, while Ayush Verma took bronze after logging Raza points despite a shorter throw of 17.88m. Ayush finished ahead of Thailand’s Sahar-dam Yaena (F54), who managed 23.31m, and Iran’s Erfan Bandori defended his gold with a Games record throw of 30.24m.
Raza points are used to convert performances to scores when events combine different classifications, taking into account the degree of an athlete’s disability. F53 athletes typically have full function of their arms and hands but lack abdominal muscles and lower spinal muscle activity, resulting in no sitting balance; F54 athletes have full upper muscle power in the arms and partial-to-full trunk muscle power, though movement in the mid-trunk and legs remains affected to a high degree.
Bhavina Patel and Sonal Patel each secured bronze medals in women’s singles table tennis after losing their semifinals. Bhavina went down 0-3 to China’s eight-time Paralympic champion Zhang Bian, 7-11, 5-11, 7-11, to finish with a second successive bronze at the mega-event; she had won a silver in the 2018 edition of the Games. Zhang, 40 years old, was a silver medallist at the previous Asian Para Games. Sonalben lost her Class 3 semifinal 7-11, 5-11, 6-11 to South Korea’s Jiyu Yoon; Sonalben had won the doubles silver at the Jakarta edition in 2018.
In the men’s shot put F11, 19-year-old Praveen Kumar produced a personal-best throw of 13.86m to claim bronze, behind Iran’s Amirhossein Alipour, who set an Asian record with 14.99m for gold, and compatriot Mahdi Olad, who threw 13.93m for silver. The F11 category is for athletes with complete or near-complete visual impairment.
Pramod Bhagat and Manisha Ramdass, and Krishna Nagar and Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan advanced to the mixed doubles semifinals in para-badminton. Nagar and Nithya defeated Chinese Taipei’s Wu Yu-yen and Lin Jia-siang 21-15, 21-10 to finish second in Group A and qualify in the SH6 class for athletes with short stature, while Bhagat and Ramdass beat Thailand’s Siripong Teamarrom and Chanida Srinavakul 21-15, 21-14 in the SL3-SU5 quarterfinals; SL3 is for players with significant lower-limb impairment who compete on half a court and SU5 is for players with upper-limb impairment, with mixed doubles SL3-SU5 combining athletes from both classifications.
The mixed-doubles results assured India of two medals in badminton at the Asian Para Games. Nagar and Bhagat will play their singles quarterfinals later in the day.
