In the Tokyo Paralympics 2020, Tek Chand carried the tricolor as India made its way in the opening ceremony. It was conducted on Tuesday at the Japan National Stadium and Tek Chand was India’s flag bearer. The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games will take place between the dates of August 24 and September 5. It will feature 539 medal events across 22 sports and a total of 54 para-athletes from India across 9 sports disciplines are participating in the paralympic games. It will be India’s biggest ever contingent to the games in the entire history and Mariyappan who is a Rio 2016 gold medal winner was going to be the flag bearer for India.
However, he and five others of the Indian contingent are quarantining for now until further notice as someone near the seats on their flight to Tokyo was positive for coronavirus. The good news is that Mariyappan and other athletes who are now in isolation have returned with a negative test. Tek Chand was along with eight other officials as India who will be represented by its biggest ever content of 54 athletes that had made it to the stadium. The para javelin athlete Tek Chand entered the parade of the Nations as a 17th Nation in the opening ceremony.Â
The opening ceremony of Paralympics 2020 was held in a para airport. It was a symbol of diversity and inclusion and the opening ceremony began with the video which showed the strength of para-athletes. In the airport, a group of crew members began a countdown at the end of which fireworks lit up the night sky and the celebration to the start of the games took place. The Paralympics flame was lit up after the flag of Paralympics was hosted alongside the Japanese national flag and the cauldron was filled with hydrogen as the games are set to be carbon neutral. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was watching the paralympic opening ceremony and also sent his wishes to the contingent. The Paralympics games have again returned to Tokyo after 57 years of gap making the Japanese capital the first-ever City to host the games twice in its entire history.
President Andrew Parsons and Japanese emperor Naruhito entered the stadium first and then the flag bearers entered. Indian athletes will be taking part in nine sports. The Tokyo edition of the game will be having 2550 male athletes and 1853 female athletes who all are looking for the top honors in the prestigious Paralympics 2020 games. The competitions are spread across for 12 days and the edition of the showpiece will have an unprecedented 4403 athletes. As per the previous records, 4328 athletes were set at the Rio 2016 games.
