New Delhi, Feb. 24 -- On a wind-carved ridge above Gulmarg, where the snow gleams with the promise of ambition, three young Indian alpine skiers are carving more than lines into ice. They are carving a future. The three athletes in focus, Sahil Thakur, Syed Zain, and Faizan Ahmad Lone have a single mentor and a single dream. What binds them together is not geography.

Manali's towering slopes and Kashmir's powder fields could not be more distinct but a shared lineage of belief, shaped under the watchful eye of Mohammad Arif Khan, the trailblazer who became the first Indian to represent the country twice at the Winter Olympics.

Under Khan's guidance, the trio recently trained in Italy's Sudtirol region, absorbing the technical rigour and ...