The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced the medal events and athlete quotas for the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games earlier this week. The programme will feature 23 sports and 560 medals. In a major setback for India’s Paralympic dreams, the programme doesn’t include two events that are of major importance for India — the Men’s Javelin F41 and Men’s Discus Throw F56.
In the Javelin F41 event, Indian thrower Navdeep Singh bagged a gold medal, which marked the last event in the Paris Paralympics. Following his feat, Navdeep made several headlines and became a national sensation. He was featured on various reality shows like The Kapil Sharma Show and Kaun Banega Crorepati. His throw of 46.32m, which won him the gold medal in Paris, had a story that reached even the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In an exclusive chat after the event, Navdeep said: “I couldn’t believe the throw went that far and leaving aside all aggression I asked my coach to swear on his mother” — the famous “Khao Maa Kasam” story, which later went viral and was mentioned during their felicitation at the Prime Minister’s Office.
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Now that the IPC has snubbed this event, it is a major blow to Navdeep and Indian para-athletes as a whole. It takes away a chance of a possible medal — both the athlete suffers along with the contingent, which aims at a top-10 finish in the LA28 Games.
In an exclusive chat, Navdeep mentioned his disappointment regarding this decision by the IPC. He said: “Yes it is disappointing. Right now, I’m keeping my focus on the upcoming World Championship. Will think of this later as to what transpires.”
The ace javelin thrower is currently preparing for the World Para Athletics Championships, which will take place in New Delhi between September 26 and October 5, 2025. Another athlete currently preparing for the World Championships and finding himself in a similar kind of situation is Yogesh Kathuniya.
Kathuniya’s event, the Men’s Discus F56, in which he won back-to-back silver medals in the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Games, is also omitted from the LA28 Paralympics programme. The discus thrower expressed his disappointment regarding the same. “It’s very disappointing. I honestly don’t know why this happened, and I’m quite clueless about how to deal with it right now,” he said in an exclusive conversation. “This event — Men’s F56 discus throw — has always had solid participation, and yet it has been dropped. That’s what hurts the most.”
“I’ve been told that the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) is getting involved and will appeal the decision. They’ll try their best to get this reconsidered by the IPC,” added Yogesh.
Whether the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) manages to convince the IPC to reinstate these two events or not is something the nation awaits to know. Currently, as it stands, two of India’s prime para-athletes find themselves in a situation of utter disappointment with nominal hopes of participating in the LA28 Games.
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