Iran to send 171 athletes to Asian Para Games
The Iranian delegation will be represented by 171 athletes at the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games, Ghafour Kargari, chairman of the National Paralympic Committee of Iran, announced.
The fifth edition of the multi-sport event will open on October 18 at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya, Japan.
Iranian athletes will compete in 15 sports, with nine featuring both male and female participants, Kargari added.
Iranians will vie for men’s and women’s glory in shooting, archery, athletics, powerlifting, taekwondo, table tennis, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball and boccia. The swimming, judo, cycling, blind football, goalball and wheelchair fencing events, meanwhile, will also see Iranian men in action.
Japan, the host nation, has meanwhile made the competition more challenging for participating countries, including Iran, by dropping several sports, including chess and canoeing, in which Iranian athletes won a total of six gold medals at the previous Asian Para Games in Hangzhou in 2022.
Having finished fourth in the first two editions – Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014 – before finishing third in Jakarta 2018, Iran achieved its best-ever finish in the history of the Games in Hangzhou in 2022, collecting 44 golds, 46 silvers and 41 bronzes to finish runner-up in the medal table behind China.
The country’s most successful campaign in terms of medals, however, came in Jakarta in 2018, where Iran bagged 51 golds, 43 silvers and 42 bronzes, but ultimately settled for third place behind China and South Korea.
Athletics has been Iran’s most productive sport across the five editions, yielding 238 medals, including 83 golds, while swimming, archery and powerlifting have each contributed 13 gold medals.