Khelo India Water Sports Festival 2025 (KIWSF) will be the first joint open-edged championship, which will include all 14 of Kayaking and Canoeing and 10 events of Rowing which are all Olympic sports. To increase the attraction of water games, it will also have three demostion events – water skiing, Shikara Boat Spring and Dragon Boat Race.
Players from 36 states and union territories will participate in KIWSF. All of them will be eyeing the players of Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Kerala. Event manager Bilkis Mir, who has been a former World Cup canoist and Olympic judge said:
Since the team of services is not participating in these games, it will be interesting to see how different states compete and who will perform. The course has been prepared keeping in mind all international parameters and we are all ready.
Suhani Meena, a water sports athlete of Madhya Pradesh, who participated in Rowing, said that she is very happy to come to Kashmir. He said, “This is a great opportunity for water sports players, as we get very few opportunities to participate in national level competitions throughout the year. Now, Khelo India Water Sports Festival 2025 will give us a chance to perform better.”
The previous national competition in Tehri (Uttarakhand) in November for kayaking and canoeing has been used as a qualifier. In this, the top 15 players in singles and doubles and the top eight players in four teams will participate in Kiwsf 2025. For Rowing, the top eight players of the national competition held in Bhopal in March this year will participate.
Almost equal participation of women and male players will be seen in this competition. Out of 409 athletes competing for the medal, 202 will be women. Kiwsf 2025 will have the largest teams of Madhya Pradesh (44), Haryana (37), Odisha (34) and Kerala (33). At the same time, teams from Gujarat, Puducherry and West Bengal will be the smallest.
On the first day, i.e. on Thursday, three gold medals of kayaking and canoeing will be decided. At the same time, all the 10 finals of Rowing will be held on the last day on 23 August. The inauguration ceremony will take place at 6 pm on Saturday, which will include Union Minister of State Smt. Raksha Khadse and other dignitaries of Jammu and Kashmir.
