Bhavani thekkeda nanjunda

Khelo India Winter Games: In a country where snow falls like a birth right, Bhavani Thekkeda Nanjunda had to borrow her first winter. She grew up in the coffee-scented hills of Kodagu, Karnataka where the earth is red, the mornings are misty, and snow exists only on television screens.

She was 23 the first time Bhavani felt the sting of ice on her cheeks, before she learned how silence sounds different when it’s blanketed in white. On Tuesday at the Khelo India Winter Games 2026 in Gulmarg, at 8700 feet above sea level, the 30-year-old daughter of a coffee farmer became the queen of sprint.