World Champion archer Aditi Gopichand Swami and swimmer Srihari Nataraj hogged the limelight, the young archer picking her first gold of the competition while the swimmer bagged his ninth on the fifth day of competitions in the Khelo India University Games Rajasthan 2025 across Rajasthan on Friday.
Aditi continued her unbeaten run in the Khelo India competitions with the Shivaji University archer claiming gold in the compound women’s individual event at the Jagatpura Archery Range in Jaipur on Friday.
On the other hand, Olympian Srihari Nataraj and Bhavya Sachdeva helped Jain University stamp their authority in the pool, ending the contingent’s swimming campaign with 27 gold medals. Jain University sits atop the medal standings with 45 medals.
The fifth edition of KIUG 2025 is being held across seven cities in Rajasthan. A whopping 4448 athletes from 222 Universities are competing in 23 medal disciplines. The Games are being held under the aegis of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in collaboration with the Rajasthan State Sports Council and are being hosted by Poornima University.
The 19-year-old Aditi, who had won the gold medal in all the Khelo India Youth Games she entered, made a fantastic Khelo India University Games debut by securing gold in the women’s compound individual event. In the individual final, Aditi defeated Taniparthi Chikitha of Lovely Professional University 147-143 to top the podium.
“The Khelo India Games provided me with the platform to experience how top-level competitions are held, and that helped me immensely when I went for international competitions. My form was a bit indifferent in the last few months, and I was keen on performing well here as I am looking forward to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where Compound Archery has also been included,” she told SAI Media.
Just like Aditi has been a dominant force in archery, Bangalore’s Jain University underlined its stature as the best swimming contingent. The second edition champions, who boast of the country’s best swimmers, including Olympian Srihari Nataraj, bagged seven gold medals out of nine events on the final day of swimming action to complete their eventual tally, including 27 gold medals, nine silver, and nine bronze. Lovely Professional University is second with 22 gold medals, and Guru Nanak Dev University is third with 21 gold medals.
Olympian Srihari Nataraj was the star of the final day at the SMS Swimming pool, winning the 100m freestyle gold with a time of 52.30s and 50m backstroke (26.53s) before joining his teammates in the 400m Medley Mixed relay to finish the Games with nine gold and two silver medals.
Guru Nanak Dev University cyclists dominated the track events, winning both the men’s and women’s team sprint gold medals, women’s team pursuit, and Barsarani Barik added the women’s 500m individual time trial with a time of 00:38.535s, ahead of Mahatma Gandhi University’s Sanjana VS.
Meanwhile, in Bharatpur, where the wrestling competitions are being held, Lovely Professional University, which had racked up six gold medals on the previous two days, had a lesser outing on Friday as none of their wrestlers could win a gold medal. Although they won three silver medals, the prized gold eluded them on the last day of the wrestling competition, much to their disappointment. Still, with six gold medals, they leave the wrestling event with the most gold medals and as the most successful university.
Among important results on Friday, local university Dr KN Modi University picked up its second gold, following Sagar’s gold in the men’s 97kg Greco-Roman category on day two — all thanks to Khushi in the women’s 68kg freestyle. Shalina Sayer Siddhi from the Siddi community, representing the Karnatak University, won a bronze medal in the women’s 57kg freestyle. The Siddis are of African descent and have been living in India for centuries now. Her win truly highlights the inclusive nature of the Khelo India initiative.
Nurtured at SAI Hisar, Nishu sets sights on Asian Games after gold in 53kg category
For someone who is all of 23 years old and has accomplished so much, that’s very unusual, and to some it may border on the unsettling. Still, for Indian wrestler Nishu, it’s all about an unseen calmness about her.
At an age in which people laugh a lot and carry a carefree attitude towards life, she barely speaks, mostly a picture of serenity, even during her three bouts across two days that saw her win her first gold medal of Khelo India University Games (KIUG) in the 53kg category at the Lohagarh Stadium in the eastern city of Rajasthan on Thursday.
But once you speak to her, get to know her better, you kind of know that it is grief that has very likely shaped her personality. She lost an older brother (by one and a half years) to a brain tumour. While it happened quite a few years back when she was a little kid, such episodes in life often leave a pall of sobriety on the survivors forever.
On Thursday, Nishu, nurtured at SAI Training Centre in Hisar, just had to win her bout to ensure a gold, and boy, she did that in style! Just seconds into the bout, her opponent, Samruddhi Sandip Ghorpade from Shivaji Stadium, appeared to have no chance. In the 2023 KIUG, Nishu had won a bronze in Varanasi, so improving on that medal was a big deal for her.
If truth be told, Nishu has many achievements to her name. She has won a bronze medal in the Under-23 World Championships for India in Serbia earlier this year, and although she failed to win a medal in another championship (for seniors this time) in Croatia, she impressed not a little, again, earlier this year. For an athlete like that to say that “every competition is important” speaks to her being a very grounded, ever-learning person.
Nishu, who has tasted gold success in the Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) too, is grateful to her parents for being by her side through thick and thin. She doesn’t come from a farming family, as most athletes from Haryana do. Her father is a driver.
Nishu, who trains at SAI Training Centre in Hisar, is now targeting the Asian Games next year in Nagoya, Japan. For which she first has to make it to the National Camp on the basis of her performances in the Senior Nationals and Federation Cup. Irrespective of what happens there, the girl from Jind, without any wrestling history in the family, has come really far. And there is every indication that she is going to cover many more miles in the time to come.