Aanchal Thakur gets praise from PM Modi for winning 1st international medal in skiing

Indian skiing athlete Aanchal Thakur has won bronze medal in Alpine Ejder 3200 Cup organised by the Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) - skiing's international governing body - at the Palandoken Ski Centre in Erzurum in Turkey. Significantly, this is India's first medal in skiing internationally.

She said sharing this victory over Twitter, “Finally something unexpected happened. My first ever international medal. Federation International Ski Race (FIS). At the end turkey served me well.”

Anchal's father Roshan Thakur is the General Secretary of the Winter Games Federation of India. He said, “This is a breakthrough for the sport in India and the entire skiing fraternity is proud of her achievement.”

“Aanchal called me on WhatsApp and showed me the medal. I thought it was some kind of a souvenir given at the end of every FIS event! But she told me that shw won a bronze,” her father, Roshan Thakur, said .

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also congratulated Aanchal on Wednesday via Twitter. In his post he wrote, he said, “Well done @alleaanchal for winning an international medal in skiing! The entire nation is ecstatic on your historic accomplishment at the FIS International Skiing Competition in Turkey. Wishing you the very best for your future endeavours.”

“Months of training have finally borne fruit. I started well and managed to take a good lead, which helped later in getting the third-place finish,” Aanchal told TOI from Turkey.