The dusky twilight saw Indians shine in Paris as the country's track and field athletes clinched five medals at the Paralympic Games here on Tuesday.
Indians won silver and bronze in both men's high jump T63 and javelin throw F46 after Deepthi Jeevanji's bronze in the women's 400m T20 category.
Sharad Kumar and Mariyappan Thangavelu won silver and bronze respectively in the men's high jump T63 while Ajeet Singh and Sundar Singh Gurjar took the second and third spots in the javelin throw F46 final.
The 32-year-old Sharad Kumar jumped 1.88m while the 29-year-old Thangavelu's best effort was 1.85m. World record holder Frech Ezra of the USA won the gold.
T63 and T42 athletes were combined in a single event and that was what happened on Tuesday.
T63 classification is for athletes with single through knee or above knee limb deficiency competing with prosthesis.
Both Kumar and Thangavelu were T42 athletes who had single above-the-knee amputations or a comparable disability.
Gold winner Ezra is a T63 athlete and he competed with a prosthesis.
Kumar's 1.88m effort is a Paralympic record in T42, bettering the earlier 1.86m set by Thangavelu.
In the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago, Kumar had won bronze while reigning world champion Thangavelu had clinched silver. It was a sort of reversal this time.
Ajeet upstaged world record holder Gurjar (64.96m) with a fifth-round javelin throw of 65.62m. Guillermo Gonzalez Varona of Cuba won gold with 66.16m. It was Gurjar's second consecutive bronze in the Paralympics as he had bagged the medal of the same colour in Tokyo also three years ago.
Ajeet and Sundar Gurjar competed in the F46 classification which is for athletes with arm deficiency, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement in arms, with athletes competing in a standing position.
Earlier in the day, India's world champion Deepthi came up short of her best timing as she won a bronze medal in the women's 400m T20 category final race.
Deepthi, who turns 21 later this month, clocked 55.82 seconds to finish behind Yuliia Shuliar (55.16 seconds) of Ukraine and world record holder Aysel Onder (55.23) of Turkey.
The T20 category is meant for athletes with intellectual impairment.
Deepthi had come into the Paris Paralympics as a strong contender for the gold after a top-place finish at the World Para-Athletics Championships in May in Japan where she had clocked the world record of 55.07 seconds.
Turkish runner Onder smashed Deepthi's world record during the heats on Monday with a time of 54.96 seconds. Onder had finished second behind Deepthi in the 2024 World Para-Athletics Championships in May.
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