Now, India's Para Asiad stars on track for a record medals haul at Hangzhou

It now seems hard to believe that India won just four medals at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. Hard to believe because with two days left in the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, the country's medal county has swelled to 82 (18 gold, 23 silver, 41 bronze) - already 10 ahead of the previous best mark set in Jakarta in 2018.

- Shantanu Srivastava

With each major Para event, India is pushing forward at a stunning pace. At the 2018 Para Asian Games in Jakarta, the count reached 72 (from 33 in the previous edition). At the Tokyo Olympic Games, the medal count jumped from four to 19. And now, in Hangzhou, even 100 medals doesn't seem like a distant dream.

Coming within weeks of the Indian contingent breaching its ambitious target of 100 medals at the Asian Games, the tally at the Asian Para Games also showcases how Olympic sport in India is now on an unstoppable march.

The president of the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), former athlete Deepa Malik, asserts that despite the low medal count, the Rio Games were a defining inflection point winning Devendra Jhajharia and Mariyappan Thangavelu gold in javelin F46 and high jump T42 respectively marked a tectonic shift in India's para sports landscape.