India’s medal rush in para athletics continued as Dilip Gavit secured a gold in the men’s 400 m T47 final at the ongoing Para Asian Games on Thursday.Having won the gold medal in the 100 m T47 event, Gavit secured his second gold in Japan, clocking a time of 48.27 s, successfully pulling off a defence of his title that he won at Hangzhou back in 2023.India finished off the day with a gold medal, with Solairaj Dharmaraj establishing an Asian Games record during his gold medal win in the men’s long jump T44/T62/T64 final.Solairaj carried out a successful title defence with an attempt of 7.15 m, and the silver went to Malaysia’s Eddy Bernard with a 6.34 m jump.
The bronze was bagged by Yuma Tamaki (T64), who jumped 6.89m.India end the day with 88 medals, including 21 gold, 26 silver and 41 bronze medals.Coming to para-swimming, Ravi Karthik Budigina, who had earlier won two silvers, added a bronze to his collection, clinching third place in the men’s 50 m freestyle S13 final with timings of 25.89 seconds, narrowly falling short of a silver by 0.38 seconds, which was won by Indonesia’s Yavianda Maulana.
In the men’s 100 m backstroke S7 final, Tejas Nandkumar also bagged a bronze, with timings of 1:18.58. He was fourth at the 50m split but finished well, surpassing Sardor Bakhtiyorov of Uzbekistan for the bronze.In the women’s 400 m T11 final, Ravanni Valasanaini secured a bronze medal, continuing India’s sensational run in para-athletics. She was not in contention for a medal in the earlier stage but entered the final bend in third position and managed to maintain it, beating China’s Huang Zhenli by 0.07 seconds to seal the bronze.
