The National Para Athletics Championship is set to be held at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar from Thursday, with 1,460 para-athletes representing 28 states, along with teams from the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB), competing in a total of 145 medal events.According to a release, the four-day tournament — from March 19-21 — will see participation from several distinguished Paralympic medalists, Arjuna Awardees, Asian Games medalists and World Championship medalists, including triple Paralympic medalist Mariyappan Thangavelu. He who won the gold medal in Rio, silver in Tokyo and bronze at the Paris Games.Also competing in the tournament will be a double Paralympic gold medalist Sumit Antil, who won gold in the men’s Javelin throw (F43/F44/F64) at World Para Athletics Grand Prix in New Delhi last week with a throw of 69.25m.Besides these two, other distinguished athletes who will take part in the three-day event are Navdeep Singh (F41), Praveen Kumar (T64), Preethi Pal, Praveen Kumar, Shailesh Kumar, Rakeshbhai Bhatt, Rohit Kumar, Devendra Singh Gurjar, Poonam, Lakshmi, Jayanti Behera, Yogesh Kathuniya, Dharambir and Pranav Soorma.The opening ceremony will be held on Wednesday at Kalinga Stadium, and it will be inaugurated by Suryabanshi Suraj, minister for sports and youth services, Odisha.While the championship will no doubt serve as a platform for elite performers and emerging talents, it will have another major purpose. “It will also play a crucial role in selecting probables for the upcoming Asian Para Games to be held in Aichi–Nagoya, Japan from Oct 18-24 and various international competitions,” the release added.According to Satyanarayana, para-athletics chairman, Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), this championship is also focused on identifying and nurturing rural talents and promoting para sports in the country.Speaking during the press conference in Bhubaneswar, he further added, “National coaching camps will be conducted for focused training and development of the athletes who are probables to qualify for the upcoming Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.”Meanwhile, the tournament, which is being organised by PCI, in collaboration with the Sports & Youth Services Department, Govt of Odisha, and Para Sports Association of Odisha, will see 40 athletes from Odisha participating in the championships. They will be led by Suchitra Parida, national record holder in the F55 Javelin throw event.Defending champions Haryana will have the largest contingent in this championship.
