The Tokyo Paralympic Games 2020, which will be held from August 24 to September 5, will be an event of many firsts, the most notable of which will be a record number of female athletes competing in the quadrennial showpiece.
According to the IPC Qualification Criteria, at least 40.5 percent of all athletes will be female. This translates to 1,782 athletes, an increase from the 1,671 women who competed in Rio in 2016. (38.6 per cent).
Tokyo, which will make history as the first city to host the Paralympic Games for the second time after hosting the event in 1964, will also see the debut of badminton, a popular spectator sport, as well as taekwondo.
Despite the pandemic restrictions, Tokyo organisers expect to outperform the viewership numbers recorded at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, which had a total television audience of 4.1 billion.
Eurosport India has been awarded the rights to broadcast the Games in India by the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI). This will be the first time Eurosport broadcasts a global multi-sport event in the country, expanding on the diverse range of sports already available to fans on its platforms.
Eurosport India's coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games will begin on August 27 with the men's and women's archery events at Yumenoshima Park Archery Field, with a focus on local heroes. The Eurosport feed will also be available on the discovery+ app, allowing fans to stay up to date on all of the action from Tokyo.
This year, India will field its largest ever contingent of 54 Paralympic athletes across nine disciplines. World No. 3 and World No. 2 in javelin, Sumit Antil and Sandeep Chaudhary; Manish Narwal (10m air pistol), Singhraj (10m air pistol), and Avani Lekhara (10m air rifle, 50m air rifle) in shooting; and Mariyappan Thangavelu in high jump are among those in contention for medals.
For the first time in Paralympic history, a series of circular indentations on the side of the medals have been included to help those with vision impairments recognise the different Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medals by touch. One indentation denotes gold, two denotes silver, and three denotes bronze. On the back of the medals, Braille letters spell out "Tokyo 2020."
