Army to face ITBP in men's ice hockey final; Maharashtra leads medal tally at KIWG

Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) set up the men's ice hockey title clash in the Khelo India Winter Games after defeating their respective opponents here Sunday. The final on Monday will be a repeat of last year's gold medal round match in which Army had emerged victorious (3-1) in a shootout. On Sunday, Indian Army got the better of hosts Ladakh 2-1 while ITBP defeated Himachal Pradesh 3-1 at the NDS Stadium complex.

"We lost in the last match, and realized that we needed to adopt a different strategy. Today, we implemented that strategy against the UT Team, and it worked. We were in great coordination and determined not to repeat the mistakes we made against ITBP,” said Stanzin Phande, the Army captain.

The women’s ice hockey medals will be decided on Monday after the last set of league games. ITBP and Ladakh girls are well on course for the top two spots. Meanwhile, the penultimate day of the first leg of the Khelo India Winter Games 2025 brought mixed results for hosts Ladakh even as Maharashtra moved to the top of medal tally. With a gold, a silver and a bronze won by their skaters on Sunday, Maharashtra led the standings with eight medals (2 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze).

Ladakh skaters started the day on a bright note. In the 1000m short track for women, Skarma Tsultim (2:17.91 sec) and Padma Angmo (2:21.13 sec) did a Ladakh 1-2 leaving Madhya Pradesh’s Udreka Singh (2:22.74 sec) at third. Skarma's maiden KIWG gold was Ladakh’s second this year. With a total of four medals (2 gold and 2 silvers), Ladakh are joint second in the medal standings with Tamil Nadu, which won two golds -- women’s relay and men’s 500m long track -- on Sunday.

Maharashtra skaters won a gold (men’s relay), a silver (women’s relay) and a bronze (men’s 500 long track) on Sunday. Tamil Nadu won both gold (Avikshit Vijay Viswanath) and silver (Selvakumar Muthukumar) at Gupuks Pond where the men’s 500 long track race was held. PTI