साहस
Vishwaraj Jadeja · Speed Skater
Eighteen years on ice. It started in a city with no winter.
Ahmedabad → Europe → Himalayas
The story is below
Vishwaraj Jadeja · Speed Skater
Ahmedabad → Europe → Himalayas
Chapter I · The Beginning करुणा
I was born in October 1985 into the Dhrol family — once a small kingdom in the Jamnagar district of Gujarat. Royal roots; the old palace is a girls' school now, which I like. I grew up in Ahmedabad, where the heat sits on you like a second skin.
Ahmedabad gave me family, a stubborn streak, and a pair of roller skates. What it couldn't give me — winter, a frozen lake, a long-track oval — I decided I would go and find.
People were kind about it. They told me there was no path. I heard that as an invitation.
Ahmedabad · Gujarat · 4 October 1985
"There was no path.
So I made one."
Chapter II · The First Ice करुणा
From 1999 to 2007 it was roller and inline — the closest thing to ice a hot country could offer, and I took all of it. A Sardar Patel Award from Gujarat. An India cap at the 2007 Asian Roller & Inline Hockey Championship. Then Ahmedabad's one artificial rink, mostly on my own, learning by feel.
In 2008, in Scandinavia, I stood on real long-track blades for the first time. By the end of that first season I had won the club championship over 500m and set two national records. The next winter: twenty-five.
There is a moment the first time the ice takes your weight and gives nothing back — no friction, no excuse — when you understand that everything you'd done until then was rehearsal. The cold was honest. It did not care where I was from.
Self-funded, couch to couch, every rupee pointed at ice. It never felt like sacrifice. It felt like the price of finally being in the right place — and I would have paid it twice.
Scandinavia · 2008 · The surface changes
Chapter III · Europe वीर
I moved to the home of speed skating and trained under Wim Nieuwenhuizen. Olympic-standard ovals. A coaching methodology built over generations. The frozen canals. The culture that treats a blade on ice as a birthright.
India gave me the hunger. The Netherlands gave it a shape — technique, patience, the difference between wanting and knowing.
Wim watched me fall and get up, fall and get up, for years. One day he said the thing that became the spine of everything after.
Heerenveen · Netherlands · Schaatsteam Wim Nieuwenhuizen
"A Rajput,
they don't give up."— Wim Nieuwenhuizen, coach
Chapter IV · The Himalayas वीर
In January 2019 I went to a frozen lake in Ladakh and decided to skate five kilometres at four and a half thousand metres of altitude — air so thin every stride costs double.
Just a lake, the cold, and the preparation — and a distance most people would think twice about at sea level.
What I came back with was an unofficial world record. What the mountain gave back was bigger than that, and harder to put on a results sheet.
"The lake is 26 km long. There is no oval. There is only the mountain and the ice and the silence."
32.9°N · 78.3°E · 4,522M · January 2019
Chapter V · The Proof वीर
Here it is, plainly — the verifiable spine of eighteen years, every line checkable.
| Event | When | Result |
|---|---|---|
| CanAm International, Calgary | Nov 2025 | 5,000m — 7:18.59, personal best, at 40. |
| Asian Winter Games, Harbin | Feb 2025 | 5,000m — 14th of 16, a personal best at the time. Oldest skater at the Games (39), in India's largest-ever Winter Games delegation. |
| Khelo India Winter Games, Leh | Jan 2026 | 8th in the 1,000m. First participation. |
| ISU World Cup · Mass Start | 2021–22 · 2022–23 | Two Division A starts — Salt Lake City (Dec 2021, semi-final) and Heerenveen (Nov 2022); selected for a third at Calgary. Qualified through twelve pre-qualification races. |
| Sea Ice Classic, Luleå | 2022 | 100km across frozen sea. First Indian to finish — 4hr 53min. |
| Winter World Masters, Austria | 2020 | 3× silver (3km, 5km, 10km) + bronze (1km). |
| Tso Moriri, Ladakh | Jan 2019 | 5km at 4,522m — unofficial world record. |
| SVU Klub Marathon, Utrecht · International Races, Erfurt | Feb–Mar 2015 | 1st in Utrecht (28 Feb), 1st in Erfurt (7–8 Mar). Three national records that season. |
| Ezio Benini & Paride Ravanelli Memorial, Baselga di Pinè | Dec 2013 | 2nd overall at the 14th edition. Twelve national records that season. |
| Asian Single Distance Championships, Astana | Jan 2012 | India's entry on the Asian continental stage. |
| Season 2009–10, Europe | 2009–10 | 25 national records in one season — 500m to 10,000m. |
| Klubmesterskabet (club championship), Scandinavia | 2008–09 | First season on blades. 1st 500m, 3rd 3,000m, two national records. |
| National Records | 2008 → today | 65+ national records across distances. |
Verified · 2008 → 2026
Chapter VI · The Mission अद्भुत
Eighteen years without a system taught me exactly what the system should be. On Thin Ice Club is India's first elite winter-sports mentorship — the thing I would have given anything to walk into at fifteen.
Twenty places a year. Each one earned.
Chapter VII · Now अद्भुत
Two TEDx stages, eight years apart. The second one is the story of getting back up.
Echoes of the Phoenix — the bird that rises from what looked like the end.
TEDxIITGandhinagar · March 2026
In the News समाचार
20 pieces of press coverage, 2017 to today, oldest first. Each link opens the original.
For press enquiries, use the form below.
Chapter VIII · Connect यात्रा
For corporate, education, and sport audiences. The full arc, told live.
Aligned with winter sport, Indian heritage, altitude, and performance.
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