Speed Skating may not have been the most obvious sport to choose for Bangalore-born Chandra Mouli Danda (IND), yet his trajectory from the warm Indian city to the cold ice-rinks in Canada was meant to be.

When he saw his son on roller skates as a kid, Danda’s father saw something special. “He knew what I wanted before I knew it myself,” Danda explains.

Chandra Mouli Danda performs1000m Men Neo-Seniors during the ISU Junior World Cup Speed Skating on November 29, 2025 in Milan, Italy © Getty Images

Skating in the kitchen

Danda was captivated by roller skates ever since he got on a summer camp as a young kid. “They had a lot of activities and one of those was roller skating on quads, like they use for young children. When I got home, I only wanted to go roller skating, so my parents bought me a pair of skates. From then onwards I always skated everywhere. There’s footage of me rolling through the living room and kitchen at age four or something.

“When I was seven, my parents enlisted me at a club. Skating was all I ever cared about so they pushed me into that competitive field. That’s when I started inline skating and racing competitively.”

Big in India

Living in Bangalore, skating on ice was never an option. Danda explains: “Usually it’s warm in Bangalore. The coldest it gets was occasionally about 12 degrees in December and January. At a morning training, to us that felt like freezing.”

While the ice-skating is almost unknown, there’s a lot of inline skating in India. 

Danda says: “Of course, cricket is the biggest sport in India, but inline is pretty big too. There’s like hundred  thousand inline skaters racing competitively.

With the opening of a short-track facility in Dehradun in the north of India, ice has become an option for some of these athletes too. 

Danda: “They re-opened the facility last August, after it had been shut-down for a couple of years. Now they have a lot of kids training there and we’ll definitely see more Indian short-trackers coming up soon.”

Canada move

Danda himself chose a different path. When he was twelve years old his father, an IT employee, took the family (Chandra, his mother and younger brother) to Toronto in Canada, chasing the Olympic dream.

Danda: “I got pretty good at inline skating, and my parents were thinking of getting up to the world stage, competing internationally.

“But then, inline is not an Olympic sport. And it’s always been my parents dream, for me to go to the Olympics. 

“My father had job opportunities in Canada, and he felt that it was a really good place to train for short-track and long track too.

“We first moved to Toronto, where started skating short-track for a bit, but I didn't like it too much, so I went to Quebec City because I wanted to try long-track and I liked it much better.”

“I love long-track racing. In inline and short-track you have heats and stuff, but I like that high-pressure situation in long-track: you only race once, and you got to be at your best.”

From that first time in Quebec City onwards. Danda and his father drove up and forth once a month.

“I’d train three of four days before the competition, race and go back home to Toronto.”

As much fun as it was, the eight-hour drives to Quebec City were a drag. “I was getting better at (long track) and we couldn’t keep doing it like that in the long run, so we eventually moved to Calgary almost three years ago, where I could train with the Olympic Oval Program.”

In Calgary, Danda combines training with his study in Business Technology Management. Having the Olympic Oval at the university campus is very convenient. Former Canadian speed skater Philippe Riopel is Danda’s coach. 

Asian Winter Games

At last year’s Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China, Danda got a first taste of international competition. 

“That's when my international career started. I got in touch with the Indian federation. They were happy to have me racing.

“It was amazing to skate at the Asian Winter Games. I got to compete with athletes I had always looked up to at the World Cup circuit, like Yevgeniy Koshkin (KAZ) and Kim Jun-Ho (KOR). I learned a lot from them, just technically, and the stuff they do pre-race and post-race. It was a really good learning experience overall.”

This season Danda entered the ISU Junior World Cup circuit to compete in the neo-senior category. 

“I want to race the neo-senior World Cups and hopefully, if I get the (qualifying) times a few senior World Cups as well.”

Danda’s personal bests are not fast enough to be eligible for the senior World Cups, however. In his favorite 1000m and 1500m, he has to improve from 1:14.07 to 1:12.00, and from 1:55.51 to 1:50.50 respectively.

Skating internationally, Danda doesn’t have his Calgary coaches on the ice, and the Indian federation is not able to provide him with a coach at the Junior World Cup races. 

“That’s not easy. because then I don’t have a lap-board and I also miss a coach who is yelling my technical cues. Sometimes, when you're racing, you need a coach to remind you of those technical cues.

“Hopefully from next year on, we could have someone (from the federation) as a coach. This year we had one of the Swiss coaches, who was nice enough to coach us at the World Cups, which was great.”

Chandra Mouli Danda competes in the Men's Speed Skating 1000m at the 9th Asian Winter Games on February 11, 2025 in Harbin, China © Getty Images

Olympic dream

Although Danda already had a chance to skate at the Milano Olympic Oval at the first ISU Junior World Cup this season, the Olympic Games in February 2026 are not feasible. 

“This season, I really want to be able to hit those World Cup qualifying times, and in the years to come, I hope to skate at the Olympics in 2030, and really be competitive at the Olympics in 2034.