The 38th National Games of India were hosted by Uttarakhand in early 2025 (January–February), with venues spread across cities such as Dehradun, Haridwar, and Haldwani. The National Games are India's largest domestic multi-sport event, held roughly every few years and contested by teams representing Indian states, union territories, and services boards across a wide range of Olympic and indigenous disciplines.

Dhinidhi Desinghu, a teenage swimming prodigy from Karnataka who has also represented India internationally (including at senior-level events such as the Asian Games), emerged as the standout performer of these Games. Competing across multiple individual swimming events (freestyle and backstroke disciplines), she swept a large haul of gold, silver, and bronze medals in the aquatics program, making her the highest individual medal winner of the 38th National Games and one of its most talked-about young stars.

The remaining options are all decorated Indian athletes but in different disciplines and did not top the individual medal tally at this edition:

• Neeraj Chopra — India's foremost javelin thrower and Olympic/World champion, primarily competes in international athletics rather than amassing multiple National Games medals in one edition.
• Manu Bhaker — an Olympic-medal-winning shooter, competes in a small number of shooting events, limiting the total medal count achievable in a single Games.
• Bajrang Punia — an accomplished wrestler who competes in a single weight category, so his medal haul per edition is naturally capped compared to a multi-event swimmer.

Because swimming offers many individual events (different strokes and distances) in which one versatile athlete can enter and medal repeatedly, a top swimmer like Dhinidhi Desinghu was positioned to accumulate more total medals than athletes confined to a single event or category.