Speed Demon Anandkumar Velkumar Delivers India's First Gold at World Championships!

You won't believe what happened! So, this guy, Anandkumar Velkumar—from India, obviously—just did something absolutely huge. He won a gold medal at the Speed Skating World Championships! Can you believe it? The first one ever for India. It's like, wow.

(Photo Credit: X) Speed Demon Anandkumar Velkumar Delivers India's First Gold at World Championships

He's only 22, which is kinda old for a skater, but whatever. He's from some place in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and started skating on a badminton court. Like, a badminton court! How hilarious is that? A cement one, too, so it must have been super hard on his knees. His older sister, Subi Suvetha, was also a skater, so he probably just copied her, which is what younger siblings always do. It's so relatable.

So, the whole thing went down at the Speed Skating World Championships 2025 in Beidaihe, which I think is in China. Or maybe it's in Beijing? I get those two confused all the time. I'm pretty sure it's one of those big cities over there. He won in the men's senior 1,000m sprint. Not the 100m, which is what I thought at first, but 1,000m. That's a lot of meters. His time was something like 1:24.924, which sounds super fast. I can't even run that fast on my own two feet, let alone with wheels on them.

But wait, there's more! He didn't just get the gold. A couple of days before, he won a bronze medal in the 500m sprint! Like, how greedy can you be? Just kidding. That's a huge deal. It was India's first-ever senior world championship medal in the sport. So, he's like, "Here's a bronze for you, India," and then a couple of days later, "PSYCH! Here's a gold!" It's just incredible.

And get this, another guy from India, Krish Sharma, also won a gold in the junior category. So it was like a double whammy for India. Everyone is so excited. Even the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and some guy named Kiren Rijiju who used to be the sports minister, tweeted about it. They were so proud.

It just goes to show you, you don't need to be from some fancy country with ice rinks everywhere to be a world champion. You can just start on a badminton court and work your way up. It's a real Cinderella story, but with wheels instead of glass slippers.