India sets new Asian Para Games medal record with 114 in Aichi-Nagoya

At the 2026 Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya, India finished with a record 114 medals, comprising 30 gold, 35 silver and 49 bronze. That total surpassed the official Hangzhou 2023 figure of 108, which had been reduced from an original 111 after three medals were stripped for doping violations.

India achieved the 114-medal haul despite sending a smaller squad of 168 athletes in 2026 compared with 309 in 2023, and a sport-by-sport review shows uneven movement across disciplines. Para athletics remained the foundation of the campaign, contributing the largest share of the overall total. Other sports recorded both gains and declines, and several events that yielded medals in 2023 do not appear on the 2026 medal list.

Para athletics produced 65 medals in Aichi-Nagoya, including 22 golds, up from 53 medals and 16 golds in Hangzhou 2023. Multiple individual performances drove the improvement: Dilip Mahadu Gavit won gold in the men's 100m and 400m T47, Pranav Soorma took gold in both the men's discus throw and club throw, and Nishad Kumar claimed gold in the men's high jump and long jump T47. Simran won the women's 100m and 200m T12 titles, Deepthi Jeevanji captured the women's 400m T20 gold, and Haney, Rinku and Sachin Sajerao Khilari added further field-event golds.

India's para archery produced six medals in 2026 — three golds and three silvers — one fewer than the seven medals recorded in 2023. Sheetal Devi won the women's individual compound gold and was part of the mixed team compound gold-winning squad with Shyam Sundar Swami, Payal Nag and Toman Jumar, while Harvinder Singh and Vijay Sundi won gold in the men's para recurve doubles. Silver medals came in the women's compound doubles, women's recurve doubles and the W1 women's event; India did not secure a bronze in archery this edition.

Para badminton's total fell from 21 medals in Hangzhou to 16 in Aichi-Nagoya, with three golds, five silvers and eight bronzes in 2026. Nitesh Kumar won the men's singles SL3 gold and Naveen Sivakumar took the men's singles SL4 title; Thulasimathi Murugesan and Manasi Girishchandra Joshi claimed the women's doubles SL3-SU5 gold. Pramod Bhagat, who had won men's singles gold in 2023, took silver in SL3 this time, and Thulasimathi also earned silver in women's singles SU5 and in mixed doubles alongside Nitesh Kumar.

India's shooting para sport returned five medals in 2026, down from six in 2023, but included two golds from Mona Agarwal, who won the women's 10m air rifle standing SH1 and the women's 50m rifle three positions SH1. Avani Lekhara took silver in the 10m air rifle standing event, Manish Narwal won silver in the men's 10m air pistol SH1, and Shrishti Arora added a bronze in the women's 10m air pistol. Powerlifting yielded two silver medals through Ashok in the men's 65kg category and Kasthuri Rajamani in the women's 67kg, compared with three medals (one silver and two bronzes) for India in 2023.

Para swimming rose from a single bronze in 2023 to 11 medals in 2026, comprising three silvers and eight bronzes; Ravi Karthik Budigina won silver in both the men's 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle S13, and Kapil Kumar added silver in the men's 400m freestyle S10. Para table tennis improved from two bronzes in 2023 to seven bronzes in 2026, with Jehan Madan and Shubham Wadhwa among the medalists in men's doubles and additional podium finishes across men's and women's singles and mixed doubles.

Medals that appeared on India's 2023 list in canoe, chess, taekwondo and rowing do not appear on the 2026 medal list; pre-event reporting indicated India did not compete in para canoeing, para rowing, para chess or para taekwondo at the 2026 Games. That change in the range of sports contested, together with a smaller athlete contingent, affects direct comparisons between the two editions and helps explain why gains in athletics and swimming had an outsized impact on the overall total.

India's 2026 campaign set a new national benchmark at the Asian Para Games, led by athletics and bolstered by substantial swimming and table tennis returns, while badminton, archery, shooting and powerlifting produced fewer medals than in 2023; the adjusted Hangzhou total of 108 and changes in the sports contested between editions mean the improvement in Japan does not represent uniform progress across every sport.