PARIS: India's Ravi Rongali finished a creditable fifth in the men's F40 shot put final, while Rakshita Raju bowed out in the opening round heats of the women's 1500m T11 race on the third day of athletics competitions at the Paris Paralympics on Sunday.
Rongali, who had won a silver in the Asian Para Games last year in China, produced a personal best of 10.63m, but that was only enough for a fifth-place finish in a top-class field.
World record holder Miguel Montero of Portugal won the gold with a throw of 11.21m, while Mongolia's Battulga Tsegmid (11.09m) took the silver. Reigning Asian Para Games champion Garrah Tnaiash of Iraq claimed the bronze with a throw of 11.03m. Russian Tokyo Paralympics gold medallist and reigning world para athletics champion Denis Gnezdilov, who was competing as a Neutral Paralympic Athlete, finished fourth with 10.80m.
The F40 class is for para athletes with short stature.
Earlier in the day, Rakshita, 23, finished last out of four runners in Heat 3 after clocking a time of 5:29.92s. The top two runners from the three heats qualified for the final. China's Shanshan He topped Rakshita's heat with a time of 4:44.66s, ahead of Louzanne Coetzee of South Africa, who clocked a season-best time of 4:45.25s.
The T11 category is for athletes with visual impairments, which may include the complete loss of vision or the ability to perceive light without the capacity to see the shape of a hand at any distance. T11 athletes commonly run with guides.
On Friday, Preethi Pal had won India's first athletics medal in a Paralympics track event, clinching a bronze in the women's T35 100m event with a personal best time of 14.21 seconds. The 23-year-old Preethi, a farmer's daughter from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, had come to Paris after winning a bronze in the same event at the World Para Athletics Championships in May.
The T35 classification is meant for athletes who have coordination impairments such as hypertonia, ataxia, and athetosis.