India’s Pranav Soorma clinched gold medal in the men’s discus throw combined F51/52/53 event with an Asian record while compatriot Ram Ratan Singh won silver in the Asian Para Games in Nagoya on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old Soorma, who had won gold in the club throw F51 event in the previous Asian Para Games in China, sent his discus to a distance of 11.66m in his fourth attempt to take the top spot and set a new Asian record.
Singh, 31, produced a throw of 10.35m in his second attempt to win the silver. Both Soorma and Singh are F51 athletes.
Iran’s Alireza Hemami, a F53 athlete, took the bronze with his fourth round throw of 20.20m.
Though Hemami recorded a longer distance, he was placed below Soorma and Singh on the basis of Raza Point System used for deciding the placings of athletes of different classifications who competed in a combined event.
The system converts an athlete’s performance into a standardised point score after making classification adjustments. Athletes with a higher or more severe degree of impairment may rank higher in a combined event even with a shorter distance or lower time as their scores are weighted relative to their classification.
The F51 classification is for athletes with a high degree of movement limitation in the trunk, legs and hands, alongside a low-to-moderate degree of affected arm movement.
Athletes having near similar classifications can be clubbed together if there are not enough competitors in a particular event.
The F51-F57 group covers athletes who compete in a seated position and who have lower body impairments, limb deficiencies, impaired muscle power, impaired range of movement, or leg length differences.
(PTI)
