By Admin 
Ekta Bhayan became the 18th medallist as India surpassed its best-ever performance at the World Para Athletics Championships on the penultimate day of action at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Saturday.
Ekta, the defending champion in the F51 Club Throw category, managed a best throw of 19.80m in her final attempt to settle for silver behind Ukraine’s Zoia Ovsii (24.03m) but declared she was satisfied with her performance. India had 17 medals in the previous edition in Kobe.
India added three more to its tally on Day Seven, including two medals – silver for Soman Rana in Shot Put F57 and bronze for Praveen Kumar in High Jump T64 – to remain fifth on the table while China overtook Brazil to go top with 41 medals so far.
“The target was gold obviously but this is my third world championship medal and I am glad I could repeat my performance from last year. There was a little pressure both as defending champion and it being held at home but that’s the beauty of sports, you have to overcome your challenges,” the 40-year old said after adding a silver to her bronze (2023) and gold (2024) to complete her collection.
Despite challenging, sultry weather conditions that made holding the club difficult, Ekta was happier for the fact that she her Paralympic dream was alive with LA28 including her event in the programme after it was dropped at Paris last year.
Paris Paralympics gold medallist Praveen, who had a bronze at the 2023 Worlds before finishing an agonising 4th last year, added a second bronze with a season’s best jump of 2 metres despite a sore back that hampered his training. But the surprise of the day was the 42-year old mine-blast survivor from Indian Army Soman Rana, winning his first-ever world level medal after close 4th and 5th place finishes in the last two Paralympics.
In the morning, Chakkungal Parambil finished 4th in the women’s Long Jump T47 with a 5.74m jump for a new Asian record.
The results: Men: 100m T52: Anthony Bouchard (Can, 16.95s); 100m T35: Artem Kalashian (NPA, 11.55s); 100m T51: Peter Genyn (Bel, 20.19s); 1500m T20: Michael Brannigan (USA, 3:50.44); 1500m T46: Aleksandr Iaremchuk (NPA, 3:53.26); High Jump T64: Temurbek Giyazov (Uzb, 2.03m), Praveen Kumar (3rd, 2.00m), Banti (6th, 1.87m); Javelin Throw F13: Daniel Pembroke (GBR, 68.51m), Manjeet (5th, 57.80m); Javelin Throw F54: Ali Baziyarshoorijeh (Iri, 32.24m), Pradeep Kumar (7th, 26.11m); Shot Put F38: Levino Denis (Col, 20.38m), bettering own WR; Shot Put F57: Yasin Khosravi (Iri, 16.60m) bettering own WR, Soman Rana (2nd, 14.69m), Hokato Sema (6th, 14.35m), Shubham Juyal (7th, 13.72m).
Women: 800m T34: Hannah Cockroft (GBR, 1:49.88); Long Jump T11: Alba Falagan (Esp, 4.80m); Long Jump T47: Kiara Rodriguez (Ecu, 6.29m), Chakkungal Parambil (4th, 5.74m) AR; Shot Put F12: Assunta Legnante (Ita, 14.44m); Shot Put F35: Mariia Pomazan (Ukr, 12.04m); Club Throw F51: Zoia Ovsii (Ukr, 24.03m), Ekta Bhayan (2nd, 19.80m), Kashish Lakra (11.64m); Universal 4x100m: Netherlands (47.73s).