BharatNotes This is a reference archive, not a revision priority. The live material for RAS 2026 Prelims is in the main sports chapter, which covers 2025–26 plus the long-cycle events (Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World Cups) that recur only every four years and therefore stay current between editions.
What sits here instead is the pre-2025 record of annually or biennially recurring events — chiefly the Khelo India Games. Two things make it worth keeping rather than deleting: Rajasthan's performance trajectory across editions is itself an exam-answerable pattern, and the Khelo India year-labelling convention produces a trap that will mislead anyone reading older material without warning.
The Khelo India Year-Label Trap
Read this before any Khelo India table, anywhere. For editions IV, V and VI the official government year label runs one full year behind the calendar year in which the Games were actually held. The Panchkula Games of June 2022 are officially KIYG 2021. The Madhya Pradesh Games of January–February 2023 are officially KIYG 2022. The Tamil Nadu Games of January 2024 are officially KIYG 2023. The label realigned only with Bihar 2025.
The consequence is that the same edition circulates under two different years depending on the source. The Sports Authority of India's own medal dashboard files the Panchkula results under "KIYG 2021"; most media called the same Games "KIYG 2022". Olympics.com publishes a page titled "Khelo India Youth Games 2023 medal tally" whose URL slug reads khelo-india-youth-games-2022-medal-table and whose contents are the Madhya Pradesh edition.
Practical rule: never rely on the year alone. Anchor every Khelo India fact to its host state, which is unambiguous. If a question supplies a year, check whether it matches the official label or the year of holding — and note there was no separately-numbered 2024 edition; the official labels jump from 2023 to 2025.
Khelo India Youth Games — All Editions, with Rajasthan's Record
| # | Official label | Actually held | Host | Topped by | Rajasthan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Khelo India School Games 2018 | 31 Jan – 8 Feb 2018 | New Delhi | Haryana (38G, 102) | 18th — 2G/3S/8B = 13 |
| II | KIYG 2019 | 9–20 Jan 2019 | Pune, Maharashtra | Maharashtra (85G, ~227) | 11th — 10G/16S/18B = 44 |
| III | KIYG 2020 | 10–22 Jan 2020 | Guwahati, Assam | Maharashtra (78G, 256) | 11th — 15G/24S/12B = 51 |
| IV | KIYG 2021 | 4–13 June 2022 | Panchkula, Haryana | Haryana (52G, 137) | 10th — 8G/9S/15B = 32 |
| V | KIYG 2022 | 30 Jan – 11 Feb 2023 | Madhya Pradesh | Maharashtra (56G, 161) | 4th — 19G/10S/19B = 48 |
| VI | KIYG 2023 | 19–31 Jan 2024 | Tamil Nadu | Maharashtra (57G, 158) | 5th — 13G/17S/17B = 47 |
| VII | KIYG 2025 | 4–15 May 2025 | Bihar | Maharashtra (58G, 158) | 3rd — 24G/12S/24B = 60 |
Rajasthan's trajectory — 18th → 11th → 11th → 10th → 4th → 5th → 3rd — is the single most useful thing in this table. The state's gold count nearly doubled between the Tamil Nadu edition (13) and Bihar (24). Its breakthrough came at the Madhya Pradesh edition, where it jumped six places to fourth.
Precision point that applies to every row: Khelo India standings rank by gold count, not total medals. Rajasthan placed 4th at the MP edition on 19 golds despite Delhi, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu all winning more medals overall; the same applies to its third place in Bihar. Say "third on the standings," never "third-most medals."
A coincidence worth flagging so it doesn't read as an error: Maharashtra totalled exactly 158 medals at both the Tamil Nadu and Bihar editions — but with different gold splits (57 and 58). Both figures were verified independently against separate sources, including the official Khelo India portal. It is genuine, not a transcription slip.
Edition details worth keeping
| Edition | Detail |
|---|---|
| I — Delhi 2018 | Held as the Khelo India School Games, under-17 only; 16 sports; 3,507 athletes. Inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi at the Indira Gandhi Arena. Programme mascots Vijay (tiger) and Jaya (blackbuck). Haryana topped on gold (38) although Maharashtra won more total medals (111 v 102) |
| II — Pune 2019 | Renamed Khelo India Youth Games; first edition with an under-21 category alongside under-17, coinciding with the Indian Olympic Association's involvement from September 2018; 18 sports; 5,925 athletes |
| III — Guwahati 2020 | 20 sports, with cycling and lawn bowls added; 6,130 athletes; theme song sung by Zubeen Garg; torch lit by Hima Das |
| IV — Panchkula 2022 | 25 sports, including five indigenous debuts — Gatka, Kalaripayattu, Thang-Ta, Mallakhamb and Yogasana; edition mascot "Dhakad"; inaugurated by Amit Shah. Host Haryana topped the table, ending Maharashtra's two-edition run |
| V — Madhya Pradesh 2023 | 27 sports; two mascots — Asha the cheetah (referencing the Kuno National Park reintroduction) and Mowgli; torch named "Amarkantak", billed as India's first smart torch. Rajasthan's six-place jump to 4th |
| VI — Tamil Nadu 2024 | 26 sports plus Silambam as a demonstration sport; squash made its Khelo India debut; mascot "Veera Mangai", representing freedom fighter Rani Velu Nachiyar — the first time a real historical figure, and a woman, was the mascot. Inaugurated in person by PM Modi in Chennai |
| VII — Bihar 2025 | 27 competitive sports plus esports as a demonstration event (BGMI, Street Fighter 6, chess, eFootball) — its Khelo India debut; sepak takraw added as a full medal sport; mascot "Gajasimha", an elephant-lion composite from Pala-dynasty sculpture; tagline "Khel Ke Rang, Bihar Ke Sang!". Inaugurated virtually by PM Modi. Shooting, gymnastics and track cycling were held in New Delhi, not Bihar |
Two traps in that last row. Aggregator sites circulate the Bihar theme as "Khel se Desh, Khel se Vikas" — the official portal does not support this; the tagline is "Khel Ke Rang, Bihar Ke Sang!". And a chapter saying the Bihar Games were "held entirely in Bihar" would be wrong: three disciplines were staged in Delhi.
Other Khelo India Verticals
| Vertical | First edition | Note |
|---|---|---|
| University Games | 2020, KIIT Odisha | Contested university-wise, not state-wise. The 5th edition was hosted by Rajasthan in Nov–Dec 2025 — covered in the main chapter |
| Winter Games | 2020, Leh and Gulmarg | Jammu & Kashmir won the first three editions; Army has topped since 2024. There was no 2022 edition — the third slipped into February 2023, and snow shortage has repeatedly forced postponements. Rajasthan has never medalled |
| Para Games | December 2023, Delhi | First edition: 7 sports, Haryana topped (105 medals), Rajasthan 6th with 43 medals (10 gold). The 2025 edition, where Rajasthan rose to 4th, is in the main chapter |
| Beach Games | May 2025, Ghoghla Beach, Diu | Inaugural edition; Manipur topped on a five-way gold tie (five states on 5 golds each, split by silver), though Maharashtra won the most medals overall (20). Rajasthan 19th with 6 medals |
Pre-2025 Results Kept for Reference
These are retained because RPSC has tested them or their equivalents before, not because they are current revision.
- 35th National Games (Kerala, 2015) — Rajasthan won 18 medals (5 gold, 6 silver, 7 bronze). This was a real RPSC question in 2016.
- 37th National Games (Goa, 2023) — Rajasthan won 65 medals (14 gold, 18 silver, 33 bronze), a markedly better haul than its 43 at the 38th Games in 2025.
- Paris 2024 Olympics — India won 6 medals (1 silver, 5 bronze), finishing 71st. No Rajasthan athlete medalled. Two Rajasthan shotgun shooters competed — Anantjeet Singh Naruka (Jaipur) and Maheshwari Chauhan (Jalore) — finishing fourth in the skeet mixed team, losing the bronze match 43–44 to China. (Kept here as context; the Olympics themselves, being four-yearly, are treated as current in the main chapter.)
- Paris 2024 Paralympics — India's best-ever haul, 29 medals (7 gold, 9 silver, 13 bronze), ranked 18th. Rajasthan contributed three: Avani Lekhara (gold), Mona Agarwal (bronze) — both in the same event on the same day — and Sundar Singh Gurjar (bronze).
- 5th National Para Shooting Championship (Pune, November 2024) — Rajasthan topped the medal tally with 34 medals: 16 gold, 11 silver, 7 bronze. This was asked in RAS Prelims 2024 (the answer being "16 gold and 7 bronze"), which is why it is preserved verbatim.
More in This Series
- Sports & Games: Achievements 2025–2026 — the live chapter for the 2026 exam
- National Sports Awards — Khel Ratna, Arjuna, Dronacharya and their Rajasthan recipients
Sources & Verification
Compiled 15 August 2026. The Khelo India edition tables rest primarily on the Sports Authority of India's own medal dashboard (dashboard.kheloindia.gov.in) and the official Khelo India portal (youth.kheloindia.gov.in), cross-checked against Wikipedia, The Bridge, Khel Now, myKhel and Drishti IAS.
Points explicitly flagged: (1) Rajasthan's 2018 and 2019 rows rest on the official SAI dashboard alone — strong provenance, single retrieval point; (2) Maharashtra's 2019 silver count differs between the official dashboard (61, total 227) and news consensus (62, total 228); (3) the 2018 gold-medal pool is given as 199 by the dashboard and 209 by Wikipedia, unresolved; (4) Maharashtra's cumulative Khelo India title count is stated inconsistently across sources and is deliberately omitted here; (5) direct automated access to pib.gov.in returned HTTP 403 throughout, so PIB-attributed figures rest on government-adjacent outlets rather than a primary read.
One widely-circulated figure was actively refuted during compilation: a mid-Games partial tally giving Rajasthan "19 gold, 10 silver, 19 bronze" for the Tamil Nadu edition is not the final result — the verified final is 13/17/17, and the same partial snippet also misstated Tamil Nadu's own total. Mid-Games standings circulate widely and are easily mistaken for final ones.
