Southeast Asia’s largest country retained its position at the top of the table on June 8 with a total of 383 medals, which ruled out any opportunity of being overtaken by its rivals. The Games concluded the last day of competitions on Friday, with Indonesia collecting 159 gold, 148 silver and 94 bronze medals, winning a total of 401 medals as of Friday evening.

Thailand came close in second place with 126 gold, 110 silver and 92 bronze medals, while Vietnam was a distant third with 66 gold, 58 silver and 77 bronze medals.

This is Indonesia’s fourth overall champion title in Southeast Asia’s premier paralympic games, having won in 2014 in Myanmar for the first time. It is also the nation’s third consecutive time winning the final medal tally of the competition after previously winning it in 2017 in Malaysia and 2022 in Surakarta, Central Java, when Indonesia hosted the event after bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are all very proud. Hopefully, we can retain our overall champion title for the fourth time in Thailand in 2025,” Indonesian National Paralympic Committee (NPC) chairman Senny Marbun told The Jakarta Post on Friday about the national team’s aspirations. “We were optimistic about winning this Para Games from the outset.”

The national representatives bagged the slew of medals in a number of sports categories, including para-chess with 15 gold medals, para-judo with 11, para-powerlifting with 17 and para-table tennis with 31 gold. The latter was a bittersweet prize as the athletes mourned para-table tennis athlete David Jacobs, who passed away in April.

“We were motivated and determined to get the best results in Cambodia. We dedicate these medals to David,” para-table tennis athlete Bayu Widhie Hapsara Purba told state news agency Antara on Friday.

The ASEAN Para Games is the largest sporting event for disabled athletes in Southeast Asia, involving 11 different countries from the region. The 2023 tournament in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh was the competition’s 12th edition, after being held for the first time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. To date, Indonesia has the second-highest number of medals in the history of the competition, just behind Thailand.

“To our disabled athletes, I as representative of the government give our thanks for all the hard work and sacrifice that you’ve all put in for your country,” Youth and Sports Minister Dito Ariotedjo said on Thursday, as quoted by tempo.co.

There is still a lack of proper data on disabilities in Indonesia, according to a 2021 United Nations report. Tallies of disabled people vary among sources, with numbers from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) and the World Health Organization (WHO) ranging from 22.5 million to 28.1 million disabled people in the country.

With this Para Games win, the country’s disabled community gets a second chance at wide exposure within a week, following on the success of 17-year-old blind singer Putri Ariani, who went straight into the finals of cult TV show America’s Got Talent in her audition on Tuesday.

Her performance was highly acclaimed by the star-studded judges and made her an internet sensation overnight, earning her an audience with government officials in Jakarta.

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