PCI head coach Satyanarayan calls India’s historic medal win at the 2024 Paralympics a ‘team effort’

New Delhi [India]September 10 (ANI): Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) chief coach Satyanarayan lauded the Indian team for its historic performance at the Paris Paralympics, calling it a feat of “teamwork”. The Indian team concluded its historic campaign at the Paris Paralympics with a total of 29 medals, including seven gold, nine silver and 13 bronze medals – the most medals won by the country in the history of the competition.

With this groundbreaking campaign, India has surpassed its previous most successful campaign at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, where the country won 19 medals, including five gold, eight silver and six bronze.

Speaking to ANI about the country's historic achievement, Satyanarayan said, “This is a big achievement for para-athletes. They have shown that you can actually become a para-athlete. Earlier, we used to win just one or two medals. In 2008, we didn't win a single medal, but now we have 29. Sports in our country are improving. This is teamwork. The Sports Authority of India (SAI), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Paralympic Committee of India have joined forces and this way we can win more medals in the Olympics too.” Satyanarayan appreciated the country's para-athletic team which brought home a total of 17 medals including four gold, six silver and seven bronze.

“The para-athletes trained systematically, we all worked together, president, secretary, etc. Nobody complained and everything was taken care of,” he said.

This record haul also helped India cross the 50-medal mark in the history of the competition. From August 28 to Sunday, 84 para athletes represented the tricolour in 12 disciplines, compared to nine in Tokyo 2020. India also participated in new sports in Paris: para-cycling, para-rowing and blind judo.

India set several records and achieved some new firsts at the Paralympics.

A look at India's medallists at the Paris 2024 Paralympics:-Avani Lekhara (Shooting, Women's 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1, Gold)-Mona Agarwal (Shooting, Women's 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1, Bronze)-Preethi Pal (Athletics, Women's 100m T35, Bronze)-Manish Narwal (Shooting, Men's 10m Air Pistol SH1, Silver)-Rubina Francis (Shooting, Women's 10m Air Pistol SH1, Bronze)-Preethi Pal (Shooting, Women's 10m Air Pistol SH1, Bronze)-Nishad Kumar (Athletics, Men's High Jump T47, Silver)-Yogesh Kathuniya (Athletics, Men's Discus F56, Silver)-Nitesh Kumar (Badminton, Men's Singles SL3, Gold)-Thulasimathi Murugesan (Badminton, Women's Singles SU5, Silver)-Manisha Ramadass (Badminton, Women's Singles SU5, Bronze)-Suhas Yathiraj (Badminton, Men's Singles SL4, Silver)-Rakesh Kumar / Sheetal Devi (Archery, Mixed Team Compound Open, Bronze)-Sumit Antil (Athletics, Javelin F64, Gold)-Nithya Sre Sivan (Badminton, Women's Singles, SH6, Bronze)-Deepthi Jeevanji (Athletics, Women's 400m T20, Bronze)-Mariyappan Thangavelu (Athletics, Men's High Jump T63, Bronze)-Sharad Kumar (Athletics, Men's High Jump T63, Silver)-Ajeet Singh (Athletics, Men's Javelin F46, Silver)-Sundar Singh Gurjar (Athletics, Men's Javelin F46, Bronze)-Sachin Khilari (Athletics, Men's Shot Put F46, silver)-Harvinder Singh (Archery, Men's Open Recurve Individual, gold)-Dharambir (Athletics, Men's Clubs F51, gold)-Parnav Soorma (Athletics, Men's Clubs F51, silver)-Kapil Parmar (Judo, Men -60kg J1, bronze)-Praveen Kumar (Athletics, Men's High Jump T64, gold)-Hokato Hotozhe Sema (Athletics, Men's Shot Put F57, bronze)-Simran (Athletics, Women's 200m T12, bronze)-Navdeep Singh (Athletics, Men's Javelin F41, gold). (ANI)