Two silvers and a bronze: Swimmer Ravi Budigina completed a medal hat-trick at the Asian Para Games

Indian teenage para swimmer Ravi Budigina won his third medal at the 2026 Asian Para Games when he claimed bronze in the men’s S13 50m freestyle event in Nagoya on Thursday. Kapil Kumar and Swatik Patil also finished on the podium in their respective events, taking India’s medal tally in swimming to nine.The 18-year-old visually impaired swimmer from Andhra Pradesh clocked 25.89 seconds to finish third in the 50m freestyle. He previously won silver medals in the men’s S13 100m breaststroke and 100m freestyle.Twenty-six-year-old Kapil won silver in the men’s S10 400m freestyle in 4:38.44 seconds. Japan’s Akito Minai won gold in a Games record 4:27.44 seconds, while Iran’s Shahin Izadyar finished third in a field of five swimmers with a time of 4:38.65 seconds.The 24-year-old Swatik added another medal for India when he finished third in the men’s SB9 100m breaststroke event. He clocked one minute and 13.77 seconds behind Iran’s Sina Zeyghaminejad, who won gold in 1:09.47, and Izadyar, who took silver in 1:13.23.The SB9 classification is for swimmers with minimal physical impairments, while S13 is for visually impaired athletes who have the least amount of vision loss among eligible competitors. Swimmers in the S10 category usually have minimal physical disabilities, such as leg weakness, missing feet, missing leg below the knee, or hip problems.In Paralympic swimming, the prefixes S, SB and SM indicate the stroke category. S is used for freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, SB for breast and SM for individual positions.In athletics, India also swept all three medals in the men’s T63 high jump final, with Shailesh Kumar winning the gold ahead of Varun Bhati and Rahul Saroha. The trio repeated India’s 2022 podium finish in the Men’s T42/T63 High Jump.Shailesh cleared 1.89m to set a new Asian Para Games record, breaking the previous mark of 1.80m set by India’s Sharad Kumar at the 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea.Shailesh remained in close competition with Varun until the bar was raised to 1.84m. He then cleared 1.87m and 1.89m to secure the gold and set a new Games record.Former Paralympic bronze medalist Varun won silver with a season’s best of 1.84m, while Rahul won bronze after clearing 1.81m.