India Won 29 Medals at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Seven of Them Gold, Ten More Than at Tokyo, in Athletics, Badminton, Shooting, Archery and Judo

India won 29 medals at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, which ran from 28 August to 8 September 2024: seven gold, nine silver and 13 bronze. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports calls it the country’s most successful Paralympic Games. The total is ten more than the 19 medals (five gold, eight silver, six bronze) from Tokyo 2020, and the Ministry’s year-end review puts India 18th in the medal table.

The medals came in five sports. By the lists in Outlook India and The Bridge, athletics gave 17, badminton five, shooting four, archery two and judo one. The squad was the largest India has sent, 84 athletes in 12 sports, according to the Ministry.

The seven gold medals

• Avani Lekhara, women’s 10 m air rifle standing SH1, with 249.7, a Paralympic record. 30 August.
• Nitesh Kumar, men’s singles SL3 badminton, beating Daniel Bethell of Great Britain 21-14, 18-21, 23-21. 2 September.
• Sumit Antil, men’s javelin F64, with a Paralympic record 70.59 m. 2 September.
• Harvinder Singh, men’s individual recurve open archery, beating Lukasz Ciszek of Poland 6-0 in the final. 4 September.
• Dharambir, men’s club throw F51, with his compatriot Pranav Soorma taking silver.
• Praveen Kumar, men’s high jump T64, clearing 2.08 m.
• Navdeep, men’s javelin F41, with 47.32 m.

The letters and numbers are impairment classes. Outlook India explains, for example, that F41 is for athletes of short stature and T35 for athletes with coordination impairments, so each class is its own competition inside a sport. Dates are from ESPN and Outlook India.

Avani Lekhara defends her title on the first medal day

India’s first medals came on Friday 30 August at the shooting range in Chateauroux. Lekhara, 22, had won this event at Tokyo 2020 with 249.6. In Paris she qualified second with 625.8, which ESPN says was 0.2 short of the old Paralympic record, and then shot 249.7 in the final to beat her own mark.

Lee Yunri of South Korea took silver with 246.8, after a 6.8 on her last shot. Mona Agarwal, a debutant, took bronze with 228.7. Lekhara’s own last shot was a 10.5, ESPN reports. The medal was her third Paralympic medal, after the Tokyo gold and a Tokyo bronze in the 50 m rifle three positions, which PIB lists.

The same day Manish Narwal won silver in the men’s 10 m air pistol SH1 and Preethi Pal took bronze in the women’s 100 m T35, per Outlook India’s list. Rubina Francis added a bronze in the women’s 10 m air pistol SH1 the next day.

Eight medals on 2 September

ESPN counts Monday 2 September as the best single day India has had at a Games, with eight medals taking the total to 15. Antil defended the title he won in Tokyo. His first throw of 69.11 m beat the Paralympic record of 68.55 m that he set in Tokyo, and his second, 70.59 m, beat it again. Dulan Kodithuwakku of Sri Lanka was second with 67.03 m and Michal Burian of Australia third with 64.89 m, Outlook India reports. ESPN calls him the first Indian man to defend a Paralympic title, and gives his personal best and F64 world record as 73.29 m.

Kumar’s badminton final against Bethell lasted an hour and twenty minutes, according to ESPN, and the longest rally ran to 122 shots. It was his first international gold medal.

Thulasimathi Murugesan lost the women’s SU5 final to the reigning champion Yang Qiu Xia, 17-21, 10-21, for silver on her debut Games. Suhas Yathiraj, 41 and an Indian Administrative Service officer, lost the SL4 final to the home favourite Lucas Mazur, 9-21, 13-21, for his second Paralympic silver. Yogesh Kathuniya threw a season best 42.22 m in the discus F56 for silver again, behind Claudiney Batista of Brazil, as in Tokyo. Manisha Ramadass (SU5) and Nithya Sre Sivan (SH6) won badminton bronzes.

Archery: a first gold and a one-point bronze

Harvinder Singh, 33, won India’s first Paralympic bronze in archery in Tokyo. In Paris he won five matches in a single day and beat Poland’s Ciszek by 28-24, 28-27 and 29-25 for the gold, Outlook India reports. ESPN describes it as the country’s first gold in para archery.

The mixed team compound bronze went to Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar. ESPN reports they trailed Italy’s Eleonora Sarti and Matteo Bonacina by a point going into the last set, then shot four tens from four arrows to win 156-155. The 156 equalled the Paralympic record for the event. Sheetal Devi was 17. She was born with severely underdeveloped arms and shoots with her feet, mouth and shoulder. Rakesh Kumar has used a wheelchair since a spinal injury in 2009.

Navdeep’s gold, settled after an appeal

The last gold was settled after the event itself, on Saturday 7 September. In the F41 javelin, which is for athletes of short stature, Navdeep threw a personal best 47.32 m, Outlook India reports. The Iranian athlete threw 47.64 m with his penultimate attempt and was first on the field.

The Paralympic officials then disqualified him for unsporting or improper conduct. ESPN reports that it was his second yellow card, this one for displaying a flag, and that the current reading of the International Paralympic Committee’s rules allows only the athlete’s national flag. Iran appealed, arguing that the flag was religious rather than political. The appeal was rejected, the medal ceremony that had been put off went ahead, and Navdeep’s silver became gold. He had finished fourth in Tokyo. On the same last day Simran won the women’s 200 m T12 bronze in 24.75 seconds, a personal best, and the count reached 29.

First medals, and the numbers on debuts

Kapil Parmar won India’s first Paralympic judo medal on 5 September, a bronze in the men’s 60 kg J1 class for visually impaired athletes, beating Elieton de Oliveira of Brazil in the bronze match. Hokato Hotozhe Sema won bronze in the men’s shot put F57 and became the first Paralympian from Nagaland and the first medallist from the state, ESPN reports. Preethi Pal, on her Paralympic debut, won bronze in both the 100 m and 200 m T35 and was the only Indian to win two medals in Paris. Outlook India lists her sprint bronzes among the first Indian medals on the track.

The Ministry’s release of 10 September counts five double podiums, 11 athletes who also won medals at the previous Games, and 12 who won their first Paralympic medal. The medal lists show the double podiums in the club throw F51, the women’s 10 m air rifle, the men’s high jump T63, the women’s singles SU5 and the F46 javelin. It counts 46 first-time participants and a record 32 women in the team. Ten women won 11 of the medals, ESPN counts.

What stood behind the team

Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said 50 of the 84 participants had been supported through the Target Olympic Podium Scheme, known as TOPS. The others used the Khelo India programme, National Centres of Excellence or other government support. Under TOPS, the Ministry’s backgrounder says, core group athletes receive an Out-of-Pocket Allowance of 50,000 rupees a month, with their training plans paid for in full. Outlook India reports that 59 para-athletes were on the TOPS roster and 50 of them qualified for Paris.

The Ministry’s own history lists one medal in 1972 (Murlikant Petkar’s swimming gold), four in 1984, two in 2004, one in 2012 and four in 2016. ESPN counts 60 medals for India in all, so Paris supplied nearly half of them.

Where the medals put India

ESPN says India finished one gold short of 15th place. In Tokyo it was 24th among 78 nations that won a medal. India’s next major Para Games, the 2026 Asian Para Games, is covered in our report from Aichi-Nagoya. For the Olympic side of the same Paris summer, see Manu Bhaker’s two bronze medals, and for the country’s longer Games ambitions, the 2036 Olympic bid.

The Prime Minister met the contingent on 12 September 2024, All India Radio reported. Two days earlier, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, the Ministry had announced cash awards of 75 lakh rupees (7.5 million) for each gold medallist, 50 lakh for each silver and 30 lakh for each bronze.