Mumbai: Swimmer Prabhat Koli Wins India's First Medal At World Ice Swimming Championship 2025

Mumbai: In January 2025, 25-year-old swimmer Prabhat Koli won a bronze medal at the 6th World Ice Swimming Championship 2025, held in Molveno, Italy,. This is India's first medal in the World Ice Swimming Championship. He secured the medal in the 250-meter freestyle event in the 25-29 age group.

The competition was organised in water temperatures ranging from 1.1°C to 1.9°C. The event, organised by the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA), attracted nearly 700 swimmers from 44 countries.

Prabhat stated, “My main event is open sea swimming. To my knowledge, I am the first Indian to participate in the Ice Swimming Championship and win a medal.”

Prabhat explained his transition from open sea swimming to ice swimming. “Whenever I approached companies or individuals for sponsorship, they asked about my medals. But open sea swimming is about completing the challenge, not about numbers. Securing sponsorship was one reason I turned to ice swimming.”

Prabhat has successfully completed the Ocean Seven challenge in the past. When he was 23 years old, he became the youngest swimmer to complete all seven challenges.

Prabhat started his career in 2008 when he was 8-year-old. Over the last 16 years, he has won several medals. In 2010, when he was just 10-year-old, he won his first international medal in an open-water swimming tournament. So far, he has participated in 20 international tournaments and secured medals in most of them.

He is the youngest swimmer to achieve the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming and the first Asian swimmer to swim from Germany to Switzerland. He is the youngest to complete the swim from Llandudno to Camps Bay in South Africa. Prabhat is also the first Asian swimmer to swim from Jersey to France and the first swimmer to cover a route along the Cape Town coast in South Africa.

Initially, Prabhat trained under coach Kishor Patil. Later, his father, Raju Koli, took over his training. His father worked as a scientific assistant at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre but took voluntary retirement to support his son's dream. Currently, they reside in Ulwe, Navi Mumbai. Raju Koli said, “Our community is Koli, and we have a deep connection with water. I wanted Prabhat to at least swim from Dharamtar in Alibaug to the Gateway of India. However, he has achieved much more than that.”

Prabhat has earned a graduate degree in commerce and an MBA in Sports Management from DY Patil University. He was felicitated with the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award by then-President Ram Nath Kovind in 2018 and also received the Shiv Chhatrapati Award from the Maharashtra government.