Gulmarg, March 10: Skiers Siddharth Gadekar of Maharashtra and Tenzin Dolma of Himachal Pradesh shone on the second day in challenging weather conditions in the Khelo India Winter Games second leg at the scenic Kangdoori slopes here on Monday.
Defending champions Indian Army continued their impressive run in the second leg, clinching four medals – 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze–– to sit atop the overall medal standings (including the first leg tally) with 4 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze.
Union Territory of Ladakh could not open their account in the second leg, still they stayed in second position overall with 7 medals. Maharashtra are placed third with 3 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze medals.
With continuous snowfall since early Monday morning making the competitions a tough test of endurance and stamina, Dolma, a 40-year-old skier from Manali, showcased rare mental strength to clinch her first-ever medal in Khelo India Winter Games with an impressive time of 13:07.41.
Dolma’s statemate Natasha Mahar (13:39.39) took the silver and Menka Gunjiyal (14:16.23) of Uttarakhand settled for the bronze.
“This is my first visit to Gulmarg and I really enjoyed a lot competing here. The surface is good and the arrangements are also nice. Since I am an ultra-trail runner, I didn’t find much trouble in vertical ski mountaineering,” Dolma told SAI Media.
“I am a mother of an 18-year-old daughter. I don’t come from a sporting background. I started ski mountaineering watching my friends, who were into some winter sport or the other. Age for me is just a number as I keep doing well in the upcoming competitions and create my identity.”
Gadekar, the only athlete from Maharashtra in the field, started training for ski mountaineering just two months back and in a short span laid his hands on two medals – a silver in the men’s sprint and gold in men’s vertical competition.
“Today’s race was an important one for me as this is my main event and winning a gold medal was equally satisfying. A lot of hard work has gone into this achievement,” Siddharth said.
Indian Army made a clean sweep of the Nordic skiing men’s sprint event with Manjeet taking the gold, clocking 4 minutes 21.14 seconds. Shubham Parihar (04:22.93) clinched the silver and Sunny Singh (04:30.94) bagged the bronze medal.
Similarly, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) dominated the Nordic skiing women’s 10km event, clinching all the three medals.
Leading ITBP’s charge, Kusum Rana added a gold in the Nordic skiing women’s 10km after taking bronze in the women’s 5km event the previous day. Selma Soreng then pocketed her second silver. Anjana Devi made it a clean sweep for ITBP by taking the bronze.
Jammu & Kashmir’s Zubair Ahmed Lone grabbed the gold medal in the snowboarding men’s giant slalom event. The Army duo of Kulvinder Sharma and Karan Sharma bagged the silver and bronze respectively. (PTI)
