Excelsior Sports Correspondent
LEH, Jan 27: Improved winter sports infrastructure and sustained support could put India in contention to host the Asian Winter Games in the next decade, according to India’s most decorated ice skater Vishwaraj Jadeja.
Renowned Indian ice skater Vishwaraj Rajen Jadeja’s career is a testament to perseverance, a quality his coach Wim Nieuwenhuizen once summed up succinctly: “He may not be talented, but he is a Rajput. They don’t give up.”
Now 40, Jadeja has spent nearly two decades in ice skating, emerging as India’s most decorated skater despite a modest upbringing. Though he hails from the Dhrol royal family of Gujarat, Jadeja was born after royalty was abolished in India and grew up without inherited privilege. Guided by his grandfather’s advice to pursue excellence in sport over wealth, he moved to Europe in the late 2000s to chase his ice-skating dreams.
Over the years, Jadeja has set multiple national records and achieved several milestones, including skating five kilometres at an altitude of 4,500 metres at Tso Moriri Lake in 2019. He won three silver medals and a bronze at the 2020 Winter World Masters Games in Austria and led India to a fifth-place finish in a team event at the Asian Winter Games in Harbin last year.
Competing in the Khelo India Winter Games 2026 in Leh, Jadeja finished eighth in the men’s 1000m long-track event. He praised the improved infrastructure and credited the Khelo India initiative for boosting awareness, facilities and media coverage for winter sports, while expressing optimism that India could host the Asian Winter Games in the next decade.
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