The 2026 Asian Para Games open on 18 October in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and run until 24 October, according to Wikipedia’s page on the Games, but India’s campaign begins two days earlier with matches in para badminton, para table tennis and blind football on 16 October, according to The Bridge. India’s medal count was zero on 16 October, as the Games had not officially begun.
The size of India’s squad is reported differently by different outlets. The Bridge says India has sent a contingent of 168 athletes competing across 11 sports. A search summary of the Wikipedia page refers to 176 competitors, 116 men and 60 women, in 12 sports, and another headline refers to 166 athletes across 10 sports. The sources reviewed do not explain the differences, which may reflect entries at different dates, and IndiaX24 reports all three.
Pramod Bhagat in para badminton and Bhavina Patel in para table tennis are India’s flag-bearers for the opening ceremony, according to the search summary of the Wikipedia page. Bhavina is a Tokyo Paralympic silver medallist. The squad also includes other Paralympic medallists such as Avani Lekhara and Sumit Antil, according to The Bridge, and Sheetal Devi is named in the headline of another squad list.
The schedule for 16 October is detailed. In para badminton, Suhas Yathiraj plays Bangladesh’s J. Dhar at 7:05 am IST, Manasi Joshi plays at 9:30 am and Krishna Nagar at 12:30 pm, and there are 25 para badminton matches in all, according to The Bridge. In para table tennis there are four group matches, including Bhavina Patel’s match against Kuwait’s A. Alrasheedi at 7:10 am IST.
The men’s blind football team plays its opening match against South Korea at 9:00 am IST, according to the same report. The reports reviewed do not describe the format of the blind football tournament or the other teams in India’s group.
The group-stage matches at the start of the Games decide seedings and progress, so results on 16 October affect the draws for later rounds. That is a general point about tournament formats and the reports reviewed do not give the details of how the groups work in each sport.
India’s record at the previous Games is not given in the sources reviewed. IndiaX24 has not found a reliable figure in the reports reviewed for this article, so it makes no comparison with the 2022 Asian Para Games.
Some of the athletes named have won medals at the Paralympic Games. Bhavina Patel won silver in Tokyo, according to The Bridge, and the squad includes Avani Lekhara and Sumit Antil, whom the report describes as Paralympic medallists. The reports reviewed do not give the number of medals India won at earlier Asian Para Games, so no target is set for this edition.
The reports reviewed give no medal target for the Indian contingent. The Bridge’s schedule shows 25 para badminton matches on a single day, and with the badminton events beginning on 16 October, a large part of the Indian squad’s sport is concentrated in a few disciplines. The article does not break down the squad by sport, and IndiaX24 cannot say which sports have the most athletes.
IndiaX24 will report on India’s first medals at the Games.
Image: A para badminton player at the Paris 2024 Paralympics (file photo; a stand-in image). Photo by Wikisquack, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.