Khelo India Winter Games: Meet Sahil Thakur, Syed Zain & Faizan Ahmad Lone - the new kids on skis

On a wind-carved ridge above Gulmarg, where the snow gleams with the promise of ambition, three young Indian alpine skiers are carving more than lines into ice. They are carving a future. The three athletes in focus, Sahil Thakur, Syed Zain, and Faizan Ahmad Lone have a single mentor and a single dream. What binds them together is not geography.

Manali’s towering slopes and Kashmir’s powder fields could not be more distinct but a shared lineage of belief, shaped under the watchful eye of Mohammad Arif Khan, the trailblazer who became the first Indian to represent the country twice at the Winter Olympics.

Under Khan’s guidance, the trio recently trained in Italy’s Sudtirol region, absorbing the technical rigour and competitive mind-set that define Europe’s alpine elite. For 19-year-old Sahil Thakur, skiing is inheritance and instinct. Raised in Manali in a family where snow is both playground and profession, his father Devi Chand and brothers Rajneesh and Rahul all skiers, Sahil speaks of Italy with reverence.

“When I returned, I could feel the difference,” says Sahil. “The coaching, the attention to technique, it changes how you see the mountain.” A national gold and silver medallist and a competitor at the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, South Korea, Sahil now fixes his gaze on a singular horizon: the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.

His ambition is not tentative, it is inevitable.

Syed Zain’s meteoric rise

If Sahil’s journey was written in his bloodline, Syed Zain’s was carved from aspiration. Raised in Humhama, on Srinagar’s outskirts, Zain,16, grew up far from the European epicentres of Alpine skiing. Yet his rise has been emphatic, two gold medals in Slalom and Giant Slalom at the inaugural Khelo India Winter Games in 2020, followed by two silvers at the Junior Nationals in 2022.

“Skiing is a European sport,” Zain said. “But Olympians like Arif Khan showed us it can belong to India too.” His foundation was laid at the Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering (IISM) in Gulmarg, refined by Khan’s mentorship, and strengthened alongside 35 to 40 Indian athletes during the Italy training programme.

Zain also credits six-time Olympian Shiva Keshavan, whose legacy continues to anchor India’s winter sports ecosystem. Faizan Ahmad Lone’s story is one of perseverance sharpened by opportunity.

Faizan Ahmad Lone credits Arif Khan

A five-time national gold medallist and four-time Khelo India champion, 19-year-old Faizan’s ascent has been powered not only by talent but by crucial support. “Skiing is expensive,” he says. “Arif didn’t just coach me, he helped me secure sponsorship. That allowed me to compete internationally.”

Faizan has since represented India at the 2025 Winter Asian Games in Harbin, China, and competed in FIS races across Dubai and Kazakhstan - each race another step in India’s slow but steady climb toward alpine relevance.

Yet beyond medals, training camps, and Olympic dreams, there is a quieter symbol of their shared journey. Each of their helmets bears the signature of Federica Brignone, the Italian Olympic champion and one of Alpine skiing’s modern greats. It is ink on plastic, but it carries the weight of possibility. “Her signature reminds us why we do this,” they say. “It keeps us focused. It keeps us dreaming.”

On Gulmarg’s slopes, where cold air sharpens resolve and every descent demands courage, Sahil, Zain, and Faizan are no longer just athletes in training. They are standard-bearers of a nation still learning to believe in winter. And somewhere between gravity and glory, they are finding their way down the mountain and toward history.