GULMARG: With couple of inches of snow during the night, technical actions over the peaks of Kangdoori to prevent avalanches and dense fog tested the patience of athletes on Tuesday who were eager to display action while sports lovers & spectators were ready to witness thrill of KIWGs.
The 3rd Day of Winter Games cleared the smoke for medal tally to decide which states or organization will gather maximum medals.
Top contenders from previous day were Army, Ladakh & Maharashtra but the five events scheduled for the day had left competition open to all in national games event at Gulmarg.
With gradual opening of games, the needle of medal tally began to incline towards Army as their team dominated Men’s Ski Relay Event and raced to Gold while Uttarakhand team scaled Silver, Himachal Pradesh team walked for Bronze medal in the competition.
The Slalom Snowboard event for Women held at Kangdoori saw thrilling contest among the participants. Himachal Pradesh was crowned with Gold & Silver but missed hat-trick of medals as bronze went to Maharashtra. The podium crowned Preeti Thakur as Golden Girl, Prakarti Thakur as Silver Girl both Himachal girls, while Urmila Pable of Maharashtra took pride in bronze.
Excited with the Gold, Preeti Thakur said that she enjoyed the competition & KIWG 2025. She appreciated the facilities and the support extended by the officials & staff.
The Nordic Ski Sprint Women was again dominated by Kusum Rana of ITBP who won second Gold today while three-time Gold Medalist of KWIG Bhavanj Thekkada from Karnataka did a late come back in this competition to obtain Silver. The Bronze was claimed by non other than Selma Soreng from ITBP, who slided a step down comparing to her yesterday’s performance.
For the Men’s event of 15km Nordic Sprint there were no surprises when Army is in competition. Army proved iron will & grit bundling all three coveted medals as Sunny, Stanzin & Thupstan won Gold, Silver & Bronze respectively. What is actually surprising take of event was that Army decimated all competitors and got top twelve positions in the event and the streak was only broken by ITBP.
In Alpine Slalom women, Himachal Pradesh players swept medals with Anchal Thakur, Tanuja Thakur & Promila Thakur winning Gold, Silver & Bronze medals.
Deputy Director General, Sports Authority of India, Vineet Kumar while speaking regarding KIWG said the games had been tremendous success as Sports Authority of India and J&K Sports Council have done marvelous job to conduct games efficiently & smoothly despite the weather conditions like fog which reduces visibility.
He lauded the coordination of officials, technical staff, participants and other stakeholders for befitting facilities.