Khelo India Winter Games 2025: Tenzin Dolma seals impressive ski mountaneering gold; Indian Army continues golden run
Khelo India Winter Games 2025: Tenzin Dolma seals impressive ski mountaneering gold; Indian Army continues golden run
After a relatively hot and sunny opening day, the weather drastically changed its mood for the second day of the Khelo India Winter Games 2025 at the Kongdoori slopes, here on Monday.
With continuous snowfall since early morning, athletes had to make some adjustments to their craft. However, the subzero temperature and the absence of harsh sunlight ultimately aided them by keeping the snow from turning to slush.
“The cooler the temperature, the better for winter sports,” said Zubair Ahmed Lone to Sportstar after capturing the gold medal in the snowboarding men’s giant slalom event.
“When the temperature is cold, it prevents the snow from becoming slushy and it makes us faster. Yesterday, the sun was beating down, and after 10 am snow started to melt, which made the competition trickier for us,” explained Zubair, who also clinched silver in the slalom event a day earlier representing Jammu & Kashmir.
40-year-old Tenzin Dolma of Himachal Pradesh was the star of the day. The skier from Manali achieved a rare feat by bagging the gold in the ski mountaineering women’s vertical event in only her first-ever KIWG appearance. The mother of an 18-year-old daughter sealed the medal with an impressive time of 13:07.41.
“This is my first visit to Gulmarg and I enjoyed it competing. Being an ultra-trail runner gave me a solid foundation for the vertical aspects of ski mountaineering. I picked it up after seeing my friends participate in different winter sports,” said Dolma.
Siddharth Gadekar, the only athlete from Maharashtra in the competition today, started training for ski mountaineering just two months back and in a short span laid his hands on the gold medal in men’s vertical competition after securing silver in the sprint on day one.
The news of snowfall in Gulmarg saw tourists flocking to the famous hill station in numbers, leading to significant traffic congestion. Despite overcast skies obscuring the scenic views, many visitors found entertainment by attending the KIWG.
A family from West Bengal were amazed to see the snowboarding events. “I’d only seen adventure sports like these on television, never realising they were happening in India,” said Oindrila Ghosh, a Sociology master’s student at Presidency University in Kolkata.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) commanded the Nordic skiing women’s 10km event, clinching all the three medals. Leading ITBP’s charge, Kusum Rana added gold in the Nordic skiing women’s 10km after taking bronze in the women’s 5km event the previous day.
The Indian Army, after dominating day one, continued its golden run in the second leg, securing four medals: two gold, one silver, and one bronze. It made a clean sweep of the Nordic skiing men’s sprint event with Manjeet leading the pack and winning gold in 4 minutes and 21.14 seconds. Shubham Parihar and Sunny Singh followed closely, earning the silver and bronze medals, respectively.
It now sits atop the medal standings by overtaking the UT of Ladakh, which is yet to open its account in Gulmarg.
Published on Mar 10, 2025
