India makes a mark in Paris

Thanks to plenty of firsts and proven performers at the Paralympics

Differently-abled but exceptionally resolute, India's paraathletes would look back at their Paralympics campaign with pride as most of the established names lived up to expectations and many talented greenhorns made the big stage their own in a record-smashing medal haul of 29.

Seven of these 29 medals are gold, which is another first for the country that started to make its presence felt only in the 2016 edition, where it won four medals. The upswing in performance after that has been meteoric with Tokyo yielding 19, a number that was surpassed this time.

Not to forget, a lot of medalwinning performances here were record efforts and personal bests, demonstrating that the athletes have made significant progress as far as their self-belief is concerned.