Srinagar/Gulmarg: Bhavani Thekkeda Nanjunda, a 30-year-old cross-country skier from Karnataka, clinched the gold medal in the women’s Nordic 1.5-km sprint at the Khelo India Winter Games (KIWG) 2026 in Gulmarg on Tuesday, capping a journey that began far from snow in the coffee plantations of Kodagu.
Competing at the snow-covered Gulmarg Golf Course, nearly 8,700 feet above sea level, Bhavani produced a powerful finish to take the top spot. The victory adds to her two bronze medals this season in the 15-km and 10-km relay events.
For Bhavani, the win carried personal meaning beyond the podium.
“This is for my parents,” she said after the race. “Though I participate in winter sports, my mother and father have never seen snow. I hope they will someday come to Gulmarg, see the snow and watch me win.”
The daughter of a coffee farmer, Bhavani grew up in southern India where snowfall and ski tracks do not exist. She first saw snow only at the age of 23 — unusually late for a winter athlete. She began her sporting career as a mountaineer in 2014, later becoming a certified ski instructor before moving into competitive cross-country skiing.
Her rise has been marked by persistent challenges — financial limitations, distance from training centres and lack of infrastructure in her home state. Despite this, she steadily climbed to the international circuit. In 2025, she became the first Indian woman to win a medal at a Fédération Internationale de Ski et de Snowboard (FIS)-accredited cross-country skiing event, securing bronze in the 5-km interval start free race at the FIS South America Cup in Chile. She has also represented India at the 2023 and 2025 Nordic World Championships and has participated in all six editions of the Khelo India Winter Games.
Bhavani credited training opportunities in Jammu and Kashmir for shaping her career, particularly at the Army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS), the Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering (IISM) and the Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering and Winter Sports (JIM&WS), institutions that provide exposure to athletes from regions without winter sports facilities.
“I had not even seen snow till I was 23. If someone can start this late and still compete, imagine what young athletes can do with proper training and coaching,” she said.
She also acknowledged support from the Reliance Foundation, which sponsors young winter sport athletes from across India, including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Karnataka.
With growing participation in winter sports and training initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir, Bhavani believes more athletes from non-traditional regions can emerge. She has now set her sights on the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Her gold in Gulmarg, officials said, reflects not only an individual triumph but also the widening reach of winter sports in India — a journey that carried her from the warm coffee hills of the south to the highest step of a podium in the snows of Kashmir.
