Indian para high jumper Sharad Kumar broke two records to win a second successive gold medal at the Asian Para Games. Sharad made a jump of 1.90m in Men’s High Jump T42/63 category to better the Asian as well as the Games record to bag the gold medal. The high jump T42/63 covers lower limb deficiency, leg length difference, impaired muscle power and impaired range of movement.India ruled the podium in this category as the silver medal was won by Rio Paralympic bronze medallist Varun Bhati with 1.82m jump while the bronze went to Rio Paralympic gold medallist Thangavelu Mariyappan for a jump of 1.67m.
Indian javelin thrower Sundar Singh Gurjar won a silver medal in the men’s F46 category while Rinku picked up a bronze medal in the same category. However, two-time Paralympic gold-medallist Devendra Jhajharia finished fourth. Gurjar notched up his silver with an effort of 61.33m in his fifth attempt. Rinku recorded a personal best of 60.92m for the bronze.
Medals kept coming in for India in other track-and-field events. Anandan Gunasekram claimed the men’s 400m silver in the T44, 62/64 classification, while Vinay Kumar Lal settled for the bronze in that category. Jayanti Behera also clinched a silver medal for India when she came third in the Women’s 400m T45/46/47 classification.
In the T45/46/47 classification for men’s 400m, Sandeep Maan fetched a bronze medal. This classification deals with the upper limb deficiencies and leg length difference. In the Women’s 400m T12 classification that deals with visual impairment, Radha Venkatesh took the bronze medal. Another bronze medal was won by para swimmer Swapnil Patil who finished third in the Men’s 400m Freestyle S10. The S10 category covers visual impairment. The other two bronze medal of Day 5 came through Avnil Kumar in Men’s 400M T13 and Tek Chand in Men’s Shot Put F54/55.
