India will field 166 athletes at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from 18 to 24 October 2026, as part of a 275-member contingent cleared by the Sports Ministry, according to the Free Press Journal and The Bridge. The athletes are 111 men and 55 women competing in 10 disciplines.
The contingent has 94 team officials and support staff and 15 contingent staff in addition to the athletes, according to the Free Press Journal. The three groups add up to 275, which matches the total reported. Another report, by Asianet Newsable and The Bridge, gives the number of athletes as 168, so IndiaX24 follows the Free Press Journal’s 166 and notes the difference.
Para athletics has the largest share, with 62 athletes, followed by para badminton with 28 and para swimming with 16, according to the Free Press Journal. Those three sports account for 106 of the 166 athletes, which leaves 60 for the other seven disciplines, a subtraction by IndiaX24.
Paralympic medallists Pramod Bhagat in badminton and Bhavina Patel in table tennis have been named flagbearers for the opening ceremony, according to the report. Bhavina is the Tokyo Paralympic silver medallist, according to the Free Press Journal’s preview.
The target is below last time’s record. The Paralympic Committee of India’s chief executive, Rahul Swami, expects India to win about 90 to 100 medals, below the 111 won at the previous edition in Hangzhou, where India took 29 gold, 31 silver and 51 bronze, according to the reports. The medal types add up to 111. The target range is 10 to 19 per cent below that figure, a calculation by IndiaX24.
The athletes to watch are named in the preview. In para-archery, they are Sheetal Devi and the Paralympic champion Harvinder Singh. In para-athletics, they are the javelin Paralympic champion Sumit Antil, and the sprinters Preeti Pal and Deepthi Jeevanji. In para-badminton, they are Pramod Bhagat and Suhas Yathiraj, who won the men’s singles SL4 gold in Hangzhou, according to a search summary. In para-shooting, they are the Paralympic champion Avani Lekhara and Mona Agarwal, and in table tennis, Bhavina Patel.
The Free Press Journal described India as ready for a medal charge, but the lower target indicates that the Paralympic Committee does not expect to match Hangzhou. The reason is explained in a separate article that IndiaX24 publishes today on the smaller athletics squad, because athletics produced the largest number of India’s medals.
The Games are in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and run for seven days, from 18 to 24 October, which is a count from the dates. The reports reviewed do not give the schedule of events on each day or the broadcast details.
The scale of the event can be seen from the numbers. A contingent of 275 for a seven-day Games means that there is about one team official or staff member for every 1.7 athletes (109 non-athletes for 166 athletes), a ratio calculated by IndiaX24, which is typical of parasport, where athletes often need classification, travel and personal assistance, according to general background and not the reports.
Classification is a feature of para sport. Athletes compete in classes according to the nature of their impairment, which is why a single sport such as badminton has several medal events for one gender, general background. The reports reviewed do not give the number of medal events at the Games, so IndiaX24 cannot say how many medals are available.
IndiaX24 will report on India’s medal tally day by day.
Image: Javelin thrower Sumit Antil (file photo). Photo by Wikedit00, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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