It started this Monday the 4th edition of the Asian Para Games, gathering more than 3,000 athletes from 22 sports dreaming for the 564 medal events.

The president of the Executive Board of IBSA, Mr. Ilgar Rahimov, is attending the competition as IBSA has its three Paralympic sports in action, Goalball, Football, and Judo.

The first medals were given in Judo. Here are the results of the light-weight categories:

Men
J1 – 60kg
1st – Seyed Abadi (IRI)
2nd – Kapil Parmar (IND)
3rd – Junaedi (INA)
3rd – Shugaa Nashwan (YEM)

J2 -60kg
1st – Kemran Nurillaev (UZB)
2nd – Sherzod Namozov (UZB)
3rd – Anuar Sariyev (KAZ)
3rd – Saeid Kouhkan (IRI)

Women
J1 -48kg
1st – Khaiitkhon Khusan Kyzy (KGZ)
2nd – Shizuka Hangai (JPN)
3rd – Fotima Toirova (UZB)
3rd – Novia Larassati (INA)

J1 – 57kg
1st – Yijie Shi (CHN)
2nd – Khosiyatkhor Poziljonova (UZB)
3rd – Uljon Amrieva (UZB)

J2 -48kg
1st – Akmaral Nauatbek (KAZ)
2nd – Liqing Li (CHN)
3rd – Lobar Khurramova (UZB)
3rd – Kokila (IND)

The bronze medal in men’s J1 – 60kg, Shugaa Nashwan, from Yemen, stated after the medal ceremony: “I’m very surprised about my performance today. I can’t believe what was going on and it’s amazing for me. The place in the competition is not so important because it’s my first competition for Yemen. Everything is a gift for us and any place can show that Yemen is always here. We want to make Judo popular in our country and support people there.”

In the Goalball competition, the first seven matches took place and here are the following results:

Men’s
Group A
China vs Korea: 10-6
Jordan vs Saudi Arabia: 13-6

Group B
Japan vs Iran: 13-8
Iraq vs Qatar: 4-7

Women’s
Group C
Japan vs China: 4-5
Korea vs Iran: 11-2
China vs Thailand: 15-6

After the last game of Day 1, Xiling Zhang, player of the women’s Goalball Chinese national team, was very clear about her expectations: “Our goal is to win the championship! I’m really thankful to my family and friends for their support behind me and they have been very supportive of my athletic career.”

Regarding Blind Football, the GPS Stadium is hosting the competition and got the first three matches of the preliminary stage. Here are the following results:

China vs India: 4-0
Iran vs Japan: 0-0
Thailand vs Malaysia: 3-0

In the victory of Thailand, Kittikorn Baodee scored the first goal of the match: “I was very happy and very proud to score for my country. Our goal is to play the final. I love to play football because it’s fun and allows me to have a lot of friends, which I made new ones during these games!”

Blind Football returns to the Asian Para Games programme, after its absence at the Jakarta 2018 Asian Para Games.

China and Iran are the only Asian NPCs to have claimed a medal in blind football at the Paralympic Games. China took silver in this event at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, Iran claimed silver at the Rio 2016 Games. China and Iran both lost to Brazil in the final.