BHUBANESWAR: The 20th edition of the National Para Athletics Championship will be held at Kalinga Stadium from March 28 to 31. A total of 982 para-athletes including 758 athletes with physical disabilities, 153 visually impaired athletes, 44 athletes with cerebral palsy, seven athletes with intellectual disability and 20 short stature athletes will participate in the event.
Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medallists Devendra Jhajharia, Sumit Antil, Yogesh Kathunia, Nishad Kumar, Mariyappan Thangavelu, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar and Sundar Singh Gurjar are among the other participants. They will compete in multiple events across 12 disciplines in 185 categories. “In my last 16-year association with para-sports, I have seen many ups and downs. As a player, I faced many challenges including financial constraints to participate in a national meet. Nowadays it’s different, states like Odisha came all out to host back-to back national para championships at Bhubaneswar. The days are not far away when we will host a para international meet here”, said Paralympic Committee of India President Deepa Malik.
Adding further she said, “Para-sports is no longer a charity sport or CSR achievement. It’s a highly competitive sport. The standard here is nothing less than the events of the able-bodied players. The upcoming national event will be a qualifier for the Commonwealth Games 2022 to be held at Birmingham.”
The championship was earlier supposed to be held in February 2022 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Malik was all praise for the Odisha government. “The most difficult part of the championship is to provide accommodation to the differently-abled athletes because each individual’s need is different. Thanks to MP Achyuta Samanta, the founder of KIIT and KISS University, and the Indian Oil authorities, the problem does not arise here,” she said.
President of the Para Sports Association of Odisha Kamala Kanta Rath hoped the nationals turned out to be a great success. “In between December 2021 to March 2022, the state organised National Para-Badminton Championship, National Para-Fencing Championship and now it is going to host National Para-Athletics Championship. We are hopeful like other national events, this will be a grand success,” he said.