Jakarta: Odisha’s ace para-athlete Jayanti Behera brought laurels to the state once again by clinching the women’s 400m silver in the T45/46/47 classification in the Asian Para Games here Thursday. Jayanti finished runner-up with a timing of 59.71 seconds.
This was the second medal for Jayanti in the mega event. Earlier, she had bagged a bronze in the 200-metre race with a timing of 27.45 seconds. In the women’s 400m T45/46/47 classification event, Li Lu of China won the gold medal with a timing of 58.39 seconds while Shigemoto Sae of Japan clocked 59.74 seconds to bag the bronze medal.
India took over the podium in men’s high jump T42/63 category, claiming all the medals up for grabs with defending champion Sharad Kumar smashing two records to snare a second successive gold in the Asian Para Games here Thursday. The 26-year-old world championships silver-medallist bettered the Asian as well as the Games record with a jump of 1.90m to claim the top honours. The silver was claimed by Rio Paralympic bronze-medallist Varun Bhati (1.82m) and the bronze went to Rio gold-medallist Thangavelu Mariyappan (1.67m).
Earlier, Indian javelin thrower Sundar Singh Gurjar won a silver medal in the men’s F46 category where two-time Paralympic gold-medallist Devendra Jhajharia finished fourth. In the same event, Rinku picked up a bronze medal to make it an India-dominated podium. India also logged a bronze in the men’s 400m T13 category with Avnil Kumar claiming the third position.