On a sad day for Indian sport, especially keeping in mind the spirit of the Special Olympics, two medals were stripped from Indian athletes under the Honest Effort ruling, which has lead to the disqualification of their scores from Thursday's competition.

Parth Malhotra and Pinky Sunil who won Gold and Bronze respectively in the Snowshoeing 50 meters dash in their respective gender categories were disqualified after their times improved by more than the permitted 15% from their preliminary divisioning time for that leg of the competition.

In the divisioning process, all the athletes for a particular sport compete against the clock to determin

Parth Malhotra led the way in a great day for India's Special Olympics movement, running an outstanding final round of the Snowshoeing 50m dash to capture Gold in the Special Olympics World Winter Games taking place at Idaho, USA.

In one of the largest Special Olympic programs in the world, India has over 230,000 registered Special Athletes in 26 programs across the country. 45 of these athletes are representing the nation across four different event categories at the World Winter Games.

14-year old Megha and 21-year old Shaivender Singh, both from Himachal Pradesh, put in medal-winning performances at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Idaho, USA.

Competing in the Alpine Novice Super G events in their respective gender categories, the two young athletes were lucky to complete their runs in good weather; and claimed Gold and Silver respectively; before a thick bout of rapidly descending fog put an early end to competition on Tuesday.

Megha, competing in division 2, easily beat her two opponents Lea Kranjc of Slove

After one and a half frenetic days at the Special Olympics World Winter Games, Team India is doing exceptionally well in the snow shoeing and alpine skiing events that they are participating in, and struggling a bit in the floor hockey event.

In the snow shoeing event, the four athletes have completed their preliminary rounds of the 25m race and have been assigned competitive divisions based on their skill levels. 20-year old Ruchika Shah from Gujarat has been placed in Division 5 where she will square-off against two Romanian, an Austrian, an Argentinean and an athlete from the Isle of Man. However with a qualifying time of 8.49 seconds, she is in 5th place after the preliminar