The 38th National Games of India were hosted by Uttarakhand in early 2025, with the main events held in and around Dehradun and Haldwani. The National Games are India's premier multi-sport domestic competition, in which athletes represent their states.

The individual who won the maximum number of medals at these Games was Dhinidhi Desinghu, a teenage swimming prodigy from Karnataka. Swimming (aquatics) offers many individual and relay events across different strokes and distances, which gives a dominant swimmer the chance to collect several medals in a single Games — and she did exactly that, emerging as the most decorated athlete of the meet.

The other names are all celebrated Indian sportspersons, but none topped the medal tally here:

• Neeraj Chopra is a javelin thrower (Olympic gold medallist) — a single field event yields at most one medal.
• Manu Bhaker is a shooter, and Bajrang Punia is a wrestler; their disciplines likewise do not allow one athlete to amass the number of medals possible in swimming.

Because a swimmer competing across many events can win far more medals than a single-event athlete, Dhinidhi Desinghu is the correct answer.