19th National Para Athletics Championships being hosted in Bengaluru

The star-studded 19th National Para Athletics Championships will witness huge participation of Para Atheletes from across the country to include Para Atheletes from 27 States and UTs. The Championship is going to commence Wednesday, March 24 and will continue until 26th March 2021 at Sree Kanteerava Stadium and Vidyanagar Stadium Bangalore.

Elite Para Athletes namely Mariyapan T, Rio Paralympic Gold Medalist, Varun Singh Bhati, Rio Paralympic Bronze Medalist, Sandeep Chaudhary World Record Holder in Men's Javelin F 44 Category, Sundar Singh Gurjar World Champion F 46 Javelin, Navdeep Singh F 40 Javelin, Amit Saroha F 51 Men's Club throw, Ekta Bayan F 52 Women's Club Throw, Simran T 13 Women's 100/200 meters are a few internationally acclaimed Para Athletes that will be seen in action.

More than 900 Athletes in different categories for both men and women would compete in 159 events scheduled over a period of three days.

Keeping COVID guidelines in check

The National Championships will be conducted in two venues one each for Field and Track events in order to ensure less crowding and exposure for Athletes so as to ensure adequate social distancing in compliance of COVID guidelines to keep them safe and enable training and fitness for impending competitions.

These events would be deemed as selection trials for the athletes to compete in the forthcoming Tokyo Paralympic Games and few mandatory IPC International Championships and hence these competition/trials hold utmost importance for athletes to perform their best.

The Secretary-General of the Paralympic Committee of India thanked the Government of Karnataka for their support at the eleventh hour due to the shifting of the venue from Chennai to Bangalore. He also thanked the Sports Authority of India for their continued support.

Earlier the President PCI, Dr. Deepa Malik applauded the support of the Tamilnadu Paralympics Sports Association and Karnataka Sports Association for Physically challenged, who are jointly hosting the said prestigious events being organized after a gap of 2 years due to COVID-19 related issues.

Disclaimer: This is a guest post by Major General Dilawar Singh (Retd.), Senior Vice President of the Global Economist Forum ECOSOC, UN. He is the former Director-General NYKS at Ministry of Youth Services and sports. He was also Additional Director General of Rashtriya Rifles, has served six tenures in counter-terrorist areas, commanded two Counter-Terrorist Balallions and is the only officer to have received three citations therein. He holds unbroken records for academic and operational excellence as well as long-term planning for the Indian Army.