India target medals on October 21 as archers, sprinters and swimmers feature at Asian Para Games
India arrive at Wednesday, October 21 at the Asian Para Games with archers Sheetal Devi and Preeti Pal among the nation’s prominent medal prospects and a programme that opens with archery gold-medal matches in the morning.
The day’s schedule spans para-archery, para-athletics, para-swimming, para-powerlifting and para-cycling, with two major archery contests set to begin the programme. Sheetal Devi and Payal Nag were slated to contest the women’s compound doubles gold-medal match against China, while a men’s compound doubles pairing from India was also scheduled to face Chinese opposition. India are also due to contest a W1 mixed-team semifinal against South Korea at 11:50 am, and several athletics and swimming finals are listed for the afternoon.
Sheetal Devi and Payal Nag finished with the silver medal in the women’s para compound doubles after losing to China 150-141 in the final. The Indian pair recorded 141 points while China scored 150 to take gold. Sheetal and Payal had been scheduled to face China’s Zhao Jing and Xu Xuequing in the gold-medal match at 5:55 am IST, one of the day’s first major medal events.
Simran advanced to the women’s 100m T12 final by winning Heat 1 in 12.13 seconds, a time recorded as an Asian Para Games record. That result secured her place in the final later in the programme. Simran had also been listed in the schedule to run a first-round heat at 5:45 am.
Ayush Verma is listed to open India’s medal-event schedule in para-athletics in the men’s shot put F53 final at 5:35 am, and the report notes he was yet to make his first throw. Early-morning athletics entries include Sujith Mandalamkunnath in the men’s long jump T13 final at 6:02 am, Anubhav Choudhary in the men’s 100m T35 final at 6:19 am, Banti and Praveen Kumar in the men’s high jump T64 final at 6:45 am, Bhagyashri Jadhav in the women’s shot put F34 final at 7:10 am and Manjeet in the men’s javelin throw F12/F13 final at 8 am.
Indian para-table tennis players have a busy schedule with Jehan Madan and Shubham Wadhwa due in the men’s doubles MD4 group match at 6:35 am and Savita Ajjanakatti and Prachi Pandey, plus Bhavina Patel and Ekta Bhyan, competing in women’s doubles group matches at 7:10 am. The mixed-doubles programme begins at 12:05 pm, with Bhavina Patel and Shubham Wadhwa in XD7 and Savita Ajjanakatti and Dattaprasad Chougule in XD17; Sonalben Patel and Sandeep Dangi are scheduled for the XD4 group match at 12:40 pm. Anjali Devi is listed to face Ladamanee Kla-Han in the women’s individual BC3 semifinal at 8:10 am, Kasthuri Rajamani will compete in the women’s powerlifting up to 67kg at 9 am and Arshad Shaik is due in the men’s C1–5 time trial final at 9:45 am.
The afternoon contains a sequence of finals where India have entrants: Vaishnavi Jagtap in the women’s 100m freestyle S8 final at 1:30 pm and Sukhchain in the men’s javelin throw F55 final at the same time; Karamjyoti in the women’s discus throw F55 final at 1:35 pm and Ravi Rongali in the men’s shot put F40 final at 1:40 pm. Preeti Pal is scheduled for the women’s 100m T35 final at 1:45 pm, Devanshi Satija for the women’s 100m butterfly S10 final at 1:57 pm and Niranjan Mukundan and Suyash Jadhav in the men’s 50m butterfly S7 final at 2:39 pm. Later finals include Vishesh in the men’s shot put F32 final at 3:30 pm, Shailesh Kumar and Mahendra Gurjar in the men’s long jump T42/T61/T63 final at 3:35 pm, Akira Banothu in the men’s 400m T35/T38 final and Ravi Budigina in the men’s 100m backstroke S13 final at 3:47 pm, followed by Chaitanya Kulkarni in the men’s 100m breaststroke SB5 final at 3:58 pm, Haney in the men’s discus throw F37 final at 4:05 pm, Himanshu Nandal in the men’s 200m individual medley SM11 final at 4:27 pm and Sharath Makanahalli in the men’s 1500m T12/T13 final at 4:32 pm.
Shyam Sunder Swami and Toman Kumar are scheduled to face China’s Zhang Yicheng and Ai Xinliang in the men’s compound doubles event at 6:20 am IST, a confirmed morning fixture on India’s programme.