The 1st South Asian Winter Games were held in

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

and Auli, in the Himalayan state of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

, India in January 2011. The games were conducted by the

Indian Olympic Association The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) or Indian Olympic Committee (IOC) is the body responsible for selecting athletes to represent India at the Olympic Games, Asian Games and other international athletic meets and for managing the Indian teams ...

and the Winter Games Federation of India. A grand opening and closing ceremony took place on 10 January 2011 and 16 January 2011, in Dehradun and Auli, respectively. The Ice skating and Ice hockey events were conducted from 10 to 12 January 2011 in Dehradun while the Skiing and Snowboarding events were held from 14 to 16 January 2011 at Auli.

Infrastructure (Games Related)

a facility has been created at Raipur Sports College. The Ice skating and Ice hockey arena has a seating capacity of 2,000 and the ice skating rink area is 60M by 30M, in which about 100 to 150 persons can skate every hour. It also has an Olympic size (50 by 25 Meters) fully air conditioned swimming pool, basketball courts and a cafeteria inside the complex. The central government had sanctioned ₹1.5 Billion for constructing this facility. Auli is a destination for skiing and snowboarding. The skiing facility at Auli has ski slopes, artificial snow making system, water storage for artificial snow making system, chair lift system for ski sport and a residential accommodation complex. For the event, most of the works, including the ice making facility were put in place and there were 230 guest rooms that were built for the athletes and officials. The season at Auli has now been extended by creating artificial ice from a captive snow plant.

Infrastructure (General)

The new Passenger Terminal Building at the

Jolly Grant Airport Dehradun Airport , also known as Jolly Grant Airport, is a domestic airport serving Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, India, located 25 km south of the city. Commercial operations began on 30 March 2008, after a runway extension to accommo ...

is now fully operational. The installation of Night Landing System (NLS) and Instrument landing System (ILS) was completed and the lights, too, were installed on the runway to facilitate night landing. The main runway was extended by The

Airports Authority of India The Airports Authority of India, or AAI, is a public sector enterprise under the ownership of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing civil aviation infrastruct ...

, to 7000 ft to facilitate the landing of bigger aircraft such as the

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air F ...

and

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavy 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airpo ...

. The

helipad A helipad is a landing area or platform for helicopters and powered lift aircraft. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard s ...

at Auli was reconstructed to ensure regular chopper services from Jolly Grant Airport. These services were used to ferry athletes and officials during the event.

Mascot

The official mascot for the first South Asian Winter Games was the

Bharal The bharal (''Pseudois nayaur''), also called the blue sheep, is a caprine native to the high Himalayas. It is the only member of the genus ''Pseudois.'' It occurs in India, Bhutan, China (in Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia), ...

, the Himalayan Blue-Sheep or Big-Horn (Ovis Ammon) Wild Sheep is the native of Central Asia and the Himalayas. The Bharal was chosen as the ideal mascot for these games keeping in view its agility, strength, sure-footed nature and adaptability for survival in the snow-covered high altitude areas. The male has massive wrinkled horns up to 70 inches in length which forms a spiral, while the horns of the female are much smaller. It weighs around a quintal and stands about 42 inches at the shoulder.

Nanda Devi National Park The Nanda Devi National Park or Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, established in 1982 is a national park situated around the peak of Nanda Devi (7816 m) in Chamoli Garhwal district of Uttarakhand, in northern India. The entire park lies at an elev ...

in Uttarakhand is the famous abode of this brownish grey Himalayan Big-Horn called Bharal.

Medal table

The Games

Participating nations

Afghanistan did not participate. South Asian Games participating countries

* * * * * * *

Sports

Four winter sports events were included in the 2011 South Asian Winter Games.

Alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for ...

consisted of

slalom To slalom is to zigzag between obstacles. It may refer to: Sports ;Alpine skiing and/or snowboarding * Slalom skiing, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Giant slalom, an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline * Super-G ...

giant slalom Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline. It involves skiing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G. Giant slalom and slalom make up t ...

and

Super G Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event ...

with both men's and women's events.

Cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

consisted of three events for men – 10 km, 15 km and a 4x10km relay, while the women's event consisted of a 3 km, 5 km and a 10 km.

Snowboarding Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympi ...

had a slalom and giant slalom with events for both men and women. Skating events included

short track speed skating Short-track speed skating is a form of competitive ice skating, ice speed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a length of . The rink itself is long by wide, which is the s ...

for men and women. Skiing and Snowboarding events were held at the Auli GMVNL Ski Resort, Auli while the Skating and Ice Hockey events were held at Dehradun RSC Arena,

. The figure in brackets indicates the number of events * Alpine skiing pictogram

(4) () *

(5) () *

(4) () *

Short track speed skating Short-track speed skating is a form of competitive ice skating, ice speed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a length of . The rink itself is long by wide, which is the s ...

(5) () ;Demonstration event * Ice hockey pictogram

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

(1) () *

Figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...

(4) () *Was scheduled to be a medal event, but only India had entered the competition, so it became a demonstration event.

References

External links

Winter Games Federation of India
{{South Asian Games South Asian Winter Games South Asian Games South Asian Winter Games 2011 in Indian sport 2011 in Asian sport Multi-sport events in India Sport in Dehradun Winter multi-sport events January 2011 sports events in India