Anandkumar Velkumar won a bronze medal in the men’s 1000m sprint inline speed skating track event at the World Games 2025 in Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, on Friday to script history for India.
The 22-year-old Indian skater clocked 1:22.482 to narrowly edge out Switzerland’s Livio Wenger for the final podium spot by 0.1 seconds.
Spain’s Jhoan Sebastian Guzman Bitar took gold with 1:22.288 while Colombia’s Jhon Edwar Tascon Holguin had to settle for silver despite a faster run of 1:21.846 as he was slapped with a reduced rank.
In the context of speed skating or roller skating competitions, “reduced rank” usually refers to a ranking adjustment applied to a skater due to a penalty, disqualification in a heat or inability to complete a race as intended.
This was India’s first-ever medal in roller skating at the World Games and the third medal at the ongoing edition after Rishabh Yadav’s bronze in men’s compound archery and Namrata Batra’s milestone wushu silver.
With three medals, this is also India’s most successful World Games campaign in terms of medal count, surpassing the two from 1989.
India have now won a total of eight medals in World Games history – one gold, two silvers and five bronzes.
The five medals before Chengdu included Aditya Snehal Mehta’s snooker gold at Cali 2013 and Sumita Laha’s powerlifting silver at Karlsruhe 1989.
Indian badminton legend Prakash Padukone’s men’s singles bronze at the inaugural 1981 edition in Santa Clara, Abhishek Verma-Jyothi Surekha Vennam’s mixed team compound archery bronze in Birmingham in 2022 and Rekha Mal’s powerlifting bronze in 1989 are the others.
Anandkumar Velkumar is no stranger to scripting skating history for India on the global stage. In 2021, he became the first Indian to win a World Championships medal after claiming a silver in the junior men’s 15000m elimination race in Ibague, Colombia.
He was also part of the Indian team which won a bronze medal in the men’s 3000m event at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou.
Earlier in Chengdu, Anandkumar Velkumar had finished a credible seventh in the men’s 15000m elimination inline speed skating road race. He also placed 12th in both the men’s 10000m point race road event and the men’s 5000m point race track event.
He is scheduled to compete in the men’s 10000m elimination race track event later in the day.