Deepthi Jeevanji wins Asian Para Games gold in a record 56.36 seconds

Deepthi Jeevanji won the women's 400m T20 title at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya on October 20, stopping the clock at 56.36 seconds to set a Games record.

Japan's Niina Kanno took silver in 58.92 seconds, putting the gap between the first two finishers at 2.56 seconds. Another Japanese runner, Akane Kato, completed the podium in 1 minute, 0.26 seconds, according to the reported results.

The 23-year-old from Telangana was defending the title she won at the previous Asian Para Games. Tuesday's result added another continental gold to a career that already includes medals at both the World Championships and the Paralympics.

One of her defining international performances came at the 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in Kobe, also in Japan. She ran 55.07 seconds to win gold, breaking the world record that stood at the time by five hundredths of a second, World Para Athletics reported.

Later in 2024, Jeevanji won bronze in the same event at the Paris Paralympics, behind Ukraine's Yuliia Shuliar and Türkiye's Aysel Onder. She then took silver at the 2025 World Championships in New Delhi, where Onder won in a world-record 54.51 seconds.

Tuesday's 56.36 seconds is an Asian Para Games record, not a new world record: Jeevanji's own Kobe performance was faster. T20 is the track classification for athletes with intellectual impairments.

The new gold was India's first of the second competition day, according to Akashvani's morning report. With other events continuing, the wider medal table was still changing; Jeevanji's final result was already settled.