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This time India has sent its largest contingent at the Special Olympics Winter Games, a total of 58 athletes and 15 officials in addition to officials. We fielded the second largest contingent at the games. Back in 2009, we won 15 medals at this event, including seven gold medals. This time, we have made a statement by winning 20 medals.
Here’s a list of all eight sports in the Special Olympics World Winter Games:
Alpine SkiingCross-Country SkiingSnowboardingSnowshoeingFigure SkatingShort Track Speed SkatingFloor HockeyFloorball
India has participated in six events this time – alpine skiing, snow boarding, snow shoeing, short track speed skating, figure skating and floor hockey. This was the first time that we sent players for figure skating and short track speed skating. Another first was our women participating in floor hockey. To our credit, we have won golds in some of those events. Here is the complete list of the events and athletes who have won medals in them:
Gold
Alpine Skiing – Anishka Upadhyay, the youngest delegate at the games at 12 years of age, won two golds by competing with 2200 mentally-challenged athletes from over 120 countries. She had golds in AS Alpine Glide and AS Alpine 10m Walk. Anita Kumari won gold in AS Alpine Novice Giant Slalom Division F4. Pooja Kumari won gold in AS Alpine Novice Giant Slalom Division F8
Figure Skating – Raj Kumar Tiwari
Floor Hockey – Girls team
Speed Skating – Bipasha Mukherji, 14 year old and a first time entrant, won gold in 25 meters.
Snowshoing – Alpana won gold in 50m race. Bharat Bhatia won gold in 50m race. Kulpreet Kaur Bhatti won 50m race for women.
Silver
Doubles Skating – Raj Kumar Tiwari with Kirti Karla
Floor Hockey – Men’s team
Speed Skating – Bipasha Mukherji won the silver in 55 meters. Ashish won silver in 55M half lap and 25m straight race. Bipasha Mukharji won silver in SS Speed Skating 55m Half Lap.
Snowshoeing – Dev Anil Dhingra won silver in 50m race.
Alpine Skiing – Lalita won silver in AS Apline Novice Super G, Maan Singh won silver.
Floor Hockey – Men’s team, including Subrata Bhattacharjee, Mahesh Poonambhai Chauhan, Tushar Das, Sandeep Singh Gulliya, Sagar Kadam, Aviraj Anil Kalangutkar, Ritish Madhur, Balu Pandian, Sonu Prashant, Yogiraj Rathod, Robin Arya, Sumit Roy, Aashis Ramesh Savekar, Sukhwinder Singh, Rajesh Verma and Vikash.
Bronze
Alpine Skiing – Lalita won the bronze in AS Alpine Novice Giant Slalom. Puran Chand won bronze in AS Alpine Novice Super G. Uttam Singh won two bronze medals, in AS Alpine Novice Giant Slalom and AS Alpine Novice Super G. Vinod won bronze in AS Apline Novice Super G.
Heartiest congratulations to the entire contingent for making us proud as a nation. The entire Indian athletes’ contingent and their performance can be viewed here.
