India will field its largest ever Paralympics contingent with 54 athletes set to compete in nine sports including Para Archery, Para Athletics, Para Badminton, Para Canoeing, Shooting Para sport, Para Swimming, Para Powerlifting, Para Table Tennis and Para Taekwondo. Paralympic Committee of India secretary general Gursharan Singh believes this will be India's best outing ever. "I am confident that these would be our best ever Paralympic Games. Our Para-athletes have worked very hard in the past years and shown great results in international competitions. They are raring to go for the Games. We are expecting around 15 medals including 5 golds at these Games. We have high medal hopes in Para Athletics, Para Badminton, Para Shooting and Para Archery," he said.
India has a total of 12 medals including four golds in 11 Paralympic appearances. The first batch, led by PCI President Deepa Malik, has arrived in Tokyo. Thangavelu Mariyappan, who is India's flag bearer at the Games, has also reached Japan and there will be a lot of expectations from the para high-jumper. Mariyappan made a brilliant leap of 1.86 metres at the recent National selection trials.
But there are others, too. Here's a complete list of India's contingent at the Paralympics:
Athletics
Devendra Jhajharia, Ajeet Singh, and Sundar Singh Gurjar (all Javelin F-46),
Sandeep Chaudhary and Sumit (both Javelin F-64),
Mariyappan Thangavelu, Sharad Kumar, and Varun Singh Bhatti (all High Jump)
Amit Kumar and Dharambir (both Club Throw F-51)
Nishad Kumar and Ram Pal (both High Jump T-47)
Sonam Rana (Shotput F-57)
Navdeep (Javelin F-41)
Praveen Kumar (High Jump T-64)
Yogesh Kathuniya, Vinod Kumar (both Discus Throw F-56)
Ranjeet Bhati (Javelin F-57)
Arvind (Shotput F-35)
Tek Chand (Javelin F-54)
Ekta Bhyan and Kashish Lakra (both Club Throw F-51)
Bhagyashri Jadhav (Shotput F-34)
Simran (100m T-13)
Reserve: Sandi Sanjay Sagar (men’s javelin F-64)
Archery
Vivek Chikara (Recurve individual open)
Harvinder Singh (Recurve individual open)
Rakesh Kumar (Compound individual open)
Shyam Sundar Swami (Compound individual open)
Jyoti Baliyan (Compound individual open)
Table Tennis
Sonalben Madhubhai Patel
Bhavina Hasmukhbhai Patel
Shooting
Manish Narwal (10m air pistol)
Deepender Singh (10m air pistol)
Singhraj (10m air pistol)
Swaroop Mahavir Unhalkar (10m air rifle standing)
Deepak Saini (50m rifle positions, 10m air rifle standing)
Rubin Francis (10m air pistol)
Avani Lekhara (10m air rifle, 50m air rifle)
Rahul Jakhar, Akash (25m pistol)
Manish Narwal, Singhraj, Akash (50m pistol)
Deepak Saini, Sidhartha Babu, Avani Lekhara (10m air rifle)
Avani Lekhara, Deepak Saini, Siddhartha Babu (50m air rifle)
Badminton
Pramod Bhagat
Manoj Sarkar
Tarun Dhillon
Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj
Krishna Nagar
Paul Parmar, Palak Kohli (Women’s doubles)
Para Canoeing
Prachi Yadav
Powerlifting
Jaideep Deswal (Men’s 65kgs)
Sakina Khatun (Women’s 50kgs)
Swimming
Niranjan Mukundan (50m Butterfly)
Suyash Jadhav (50m Butterfly, 200m individual medley)
Taekwondo
Aruna Singh Tomar (Women’s 44-49kgs)