Asian Para Games: Keralite shooter Sidhartha Babu wins gold with record

Keralite shooter Sidhartha Babu won the gold at the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, on Thursday.

Sidhartha emerged champion in R6 Mixed 50m Rifles Prone SH-1. He set a new Asian Para Games record with a score of 247.7.

Sidhartha also booked a spot in next year's Paralympics to be held in Paris.

Meanwhile, Indian para athletes made history by winning the country's highest number of medals (80) in the Games.

India have now gone past the earlier best of 72 achieved in the 2018 edition in Indonesia.

India's medal tally read 18 gold, 23 silver and 39 bonze.

With two more days left in the Games, the country is on course to achieving its target of 100 medals in this edition.

Sachin Sarjerao Khilari won the first gold of the day in men's F46 shot put with a Games record throw of 16.03m while Rohit Kumar took the bronze with 14.56m.

The compound mixed team of Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar won a gold after defeating their Chinese counterparts Lin Yueshan and Ai Xinliang 151-149 in the final.

India also won a bronze medal in archery men's doubles W1 event with the pair of Adil Mohamed Nazir Ansari and Naveen Dalal defeating the Kazakh pair of Nurshat Toleukassym and Sagdat Duisembayev 125-120.

Simran and Bhagyashri Madhavrao Jadhav won a silver each in women's T12 100m and women's F34 shot put respectively. Simran clocked 26.12 seconds while Jadhav cleared 7.54m.

Narayan Thakur won a bronze in men's T35 100m with a time of 14.37 seconds. Shreyansh Trivedi also bagged a bronze in men's T37 100m with a time of 12.24 seconds.

In para badminton, Sukant Indukant Kadam (men's singles SL4), Sivan Nithya Sumathy (women's singles SH6), Manisha Ramadass (women's singles SU5), Mandeep Kaur/Manisha Ramadass (women's doubles SL3-SU5), Krishna Nagar/Sivarajan Solaimalai (men's doubles SH6) and Pramod Bhagat/Sukant Indukant Kadam (men's doubles SL3-SL4) won a bronze medal each after losing their respective semifinal matches.

In chess, Bhaveshkumar Rathi Himanshi picked up a bronze in women's individual standard VI-B1 event.

(With inputs from PTI)