World Para Athletic C’ships 2024: Sachin Khilari defends gold; India surpasses best-ever tally

India’s Sachin Sarjerao Khilari defended his gold medal in the men’s shot put F46 category with an Asian record at the World Para Athletics Championship as the country surpassed its best-ever haul in the global competition here on Wednesday.

India, now has 11 medals, five of them gold. It bettered its previous best tally of 10 (3 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze) in the 2023 edition in Paris.

Sachin heaved the iron ball to a distance of 16.30 metres, bettering his own Asian record of 16.21 metres set during the World Para Athletics Championship in Paris last year.

On Tuesday, India had reaped a rich haul of five medals to swell its tally to 10 (4 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze). China is currently leading the medals tally followed by Brazil.

The Hangzhou Asian Games gold-medallist thrower told PTI that he was confident of taking the top podium spot.

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“I was expecting the gold here and I am happy. I have also qualified for Paris Olympics and hope to win gold there also,” Sachin said from Kobe.

With three more days still to go, India are in with a chance of winning a few more medals including gold and head coach Satyanarayan said he was quite optimistic.

“We are expecting two more gold medals and hoping to touch the 17-medal mark,” said Satyanarayan.

On Tuesday, Reigning Paralympics champion Sumit Antil had defended his F64 javelin throw world title, while Thangavelu Mariyappan and Ekta Bhyan also grabbed gold medals in their respective events as India jumped to third place.