Only six officers from the Indian contingent are allowed to participate within the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Paralympics on Tuesday, chef de mission Gursharan Singh mentioned on Sunday.
India will thus have 11 members taking part within the opening ceremony, the remaining 5 being athletes. There isn’t any cap on the variety of athletes for the opening ceremony however solely seven Indian members have reached Tokyo to date.
Of these seven, two desk tennis gamers — Sonal Patel and Bhavina Patel — have competitors on Wednesday and won’t participate within the ceremony, throughout which Japanese Emperor Naruhito will declare the Games open.
“Only six officials are allowed for the opening ceremony while there is no cap on the number of athletes,” chef de mission Singh, who can be the secretary common of Paralympic Committee of India, instructed PTI.
“The two table tennis players have competition the next day, that is Wednesday, so they are not taking part in the opening ceremony.”
The identical rule of getting a cap of six officers in the course of the opening ceremony was adopted in the course of the Tokyo Olympics which ended on August 8.
The 5 athletes anticipated to participate within the opening ceremony are flag bearer Mariyappan Thangavelu, discus thrower Vinod Kumar, javelin thrower Tek Chand and powerlifters Jaideep and Sakina Khatun.
Out of the six officers participating within the opening ceremony, 4 have been determined, which embrace the chef de mission, deputy chef de mission Arhan Bagati, COVID-19 chief liaison officer V K Dabas and Mariyappan’s coach and para athletics chairperson Satyanarayana.
A 3rd batch of Indian athletes is leaving on Monday however these a part of it must serve a quarantine interval earlier than being allowed to coach.
India are being represented by 54 athletes — the largest ever crew — and the nation is anticipating its finest medal haul this time.
In view of the surging COVID-19 instances in Tokyo, followers have been banned from the Paralympics, similar to the previous Olympic Games.