Inter IIT Sports Meet – The KGP Chronicle

And the winner of the 54th Inter IIT Sports Meet is….

“Yesterday is not ours to recover but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.”

Lyndon B. Johnson; 36^th president of the United States of America.

The 54th Inter IIT Sports Meet 2019 concluded on December 22 evening after 8 days of tireless efforts by more than 2000 participants from 23 IITs across the country. The closing ceremony witnessed some spectacular winning moments in the presence of Prof. William Kumar Mohanty, Convener, 54^th Inter IIT Sports Meet, Chief Guest Shri Ashok Kumar Dhyan Chand, son of Indian Hockey legend late Dhyan Chand, Prof. P. K. Das, Acting Director and Dean, Post Graduate Studies, and Prof. Somesh Kumar, Chairman, 54^th Inter IIT Sports Meet.

The last nine days were filled with boundless passion, emotion and drama surrounding the victories and failures of the contesting teams. As the competition drew to a close, the final few days saw a renewed burst of emotions with the knockout matches. Over a little more than a week, a lot many records were broken and new ones were created across the two IIT campuses – Kharagpur and Bhubaneswar, which hosted the meet – as athletes gave in their best in their quest for glory.

On the last day of the meet, Prof. Mohanty addressed the gathering and welcomed Shri Ashok Kumar Dhyan Chand, Indian Hockey legend. Prof Mohanty congratulated all the participants for their terrific performance. He specially thanked the IIT Kharagpur medical team who were on their toes, catering to the needs of the players, many of whom were injured during the games. He encouraged all players to excel in their respective games, understand their shortcomings and work on them, while at the same time giving their best to academics.

Impressed by the enthusiasm of the players, Ashok Kumar Dhyan Chand said, “I’m amazed to see students who are jewels in their respective academic domains, to have such passion for sports.” He added, “Sports is not about winning or losing. It is all about participation. During my father’s time, there was no such opportunity for players. Yet, they went out, played their game on foreign grounds and won several accolades”.

Addressing all participants, he said, “I congratulate all of you and hope you will achieve everything in life from these wins and losses. Let these shining medals and trophies give you all the strength to face life’s challenges, just as you dealt with them on field.”

IIT Kharagpur showed off brilliant performances by winning Gold in Athletics (Men), Chess, Basketball (Women), Football (Men), Waterpolo (Men). The Institute secured the second position in overall Aquatics, Athletics (Women), Table Tennis (Men), Volleyball (Men), Swimming (Women), Weightlifting and Tennis (Women). The Bronze came in for March Past, Hockey (Men) and Swimming (Men).

In the final standings, IIT Delhi came second with 92 points and IIT Madras finished third, with 87.1 points. IIT Kharagpur scored 122 points. All events, on and off the field, in the host and co-host campuses of Kharagpur and Bhubaneswar respectively, were taken into account.

Former Indian Cricket Team Skipper and the current BCCI President, Sourav Ganguly, could not make it to the occasion due to prior commitments. He sent across his best wishes to all the participants via voice message. He promised to come next year.

Indian cricketing legend, Mr Kapil Dev also took to an audio message to congratulate the participants. “Play the game with all honesty, and you are sure to win”, he said.

Each moment in sports and each decision contributes to one’s victory. At the end, it is consistency that matters. Every match is a learning curve, and those who learn right emerge the winner.

IIT Kharagpur contingent lifted the Champion’s trophy amongst a roar of claps, cheers and whistles and made for the victory lap to the tunes of DJ Bravo’s famous ‘Champion’ song.

Photo credit: Inter IIt Sports Meet Facebook Page, Click KGP

I Came. I Saw. I Played.

“When I came here in July this year, I found a few students playing football at the Tata Steel Sports Complex. That intrigued me. I also wanted to play, since I come from a country where football is widely played. We won the FIFA World Cup last year, you see! I didn’t know who to approach or how to go about it. I have a friend who also works in the same Mechanical Engineering lab as mine. He was playing in the IIT Kharagpur football team. I told him of my desire to play for IIT Kharagpur. He told me to come to play with them. Since then we have been playing in BC Roy.

We started practicing for the Inter IIT from August this year. Initially, I could not go for the practice because I had a lot of work, and then I was not here for quite some time. I returned in October and it is from then that the rigorous training sessions started. It was from that practice session that 25/26 players got selected for the team. We had several meetings, practice camps and I had to extract time out of my lab sessions to attend all of those. Inter IIT Sports Meet is a big thing. Intense training started in the beginning of December, and there been no rest since. We had to come for practices every single day and spend hours on the field.

Just a few days before Inter IIT, 15 players were selected to play the matches and the rest were for the reserve bench. I feel extremely privileged to be a part of the playing team. So far the matches have been good. We had a brilliant run against Ropar in our last match. And I hope we will continue to have a good run.

I play as a midfielder and as you know, this game calls for a lot of running for the entire 90 minute duration of the match. A few of our teammates have been injured, but that is part of the game. That, however, has not been able to put our spirits down. We are planning to smash the opponents with renewed vigour. I think it will be a great match against Delhi this evening. See you then, at 5 pm, today at Tata Sports!”

Olivier is working on ‘Biogeochemical Characterization of Water’ under the supervision of Prof Aditya Bandyopadhyay in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur

54th Inter IIT Sports Meet Flags Off at IIT Kharagpur

IIT Kharagpur, 15^th December: IIT Kharagpur flagged off its 54^th Inter IIT Sports Meet on 14^th December 2019. The nine-day event is co-hosted by IIT Bhubaneswar with more than 2600 students participating from 23 IITs.

The mega event held at IIT KGP is witnessing tough competition across eight games – Athletics, Basketball, Chess, Cricket, Football, Hockey, Lawn Tennis and Weightlifting while IIT Bhubaneswar is hosting four events – Volleyball, Badminton, Table Tennis and Squash. Tyra, the Royal Bengal Tigress is the mascot for the 54^th Inter IIT Sports Meet 2019.

Prof Sriman Kumar Bhattacharya, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Chief Patron of the 54^th Inter IIT Sports Meet remarked on Brand IIT’s achievement in both academics and all-round ability of the students in diverse aspects and areas that sets IITs apart from other institutes. Students are the brand ambassadors and the onus is on them to keep their brand name high, he said.

12 distinguished sportspersons from KGP campus, took to lighting the torch for the ceremony. Former Skipper of Indian Women’s Cricket Team, Jhulan Goswami sent across her best wishes to the participants via voice message, saying, “I would like to congratulate all the participants who have come here today, and are going to perform. I extend my best wishes to you all, and once again, from the bottom of my heart. I shall come next time and spend some quality time with you people.” The event will be graced by sports stars like former cricket captains Kapil Dev and Sourav Ganguly, swimming champion Bula Choudhary and para swimmer Prasanta Karmakar among others.

Inter IIT Sports Meet started in 1961 with IIT Bombay as the first host. With the increasing number of participants, the number of disciplines in the games have also increased over the years. This year, chess has been added as a competitive event. Squash for girls has also been added as a demo event.

IIT Kharagpur has completely renovated its Sports Facilities. A new synthetic track has been built at the Jnan Ghosh Stadium. New floodlights have been also installed both at the Stadium and the Tata Steel Sports Complex. The tennis and basketball courts have been given an all-new look.

The competition has started taking shape right from day one with the march past following the flag hoisting ceremony. IIT-ISM Dhanbad secured first place in the event. Prof Rajeev Shekhar, Director, IIT-ISM Dhanbad, hoped the participants would compete with the never-dying fighting spirit.

The opening ceremony was celebrated by several professional performances including rhythmic yoga performance by Majida Khatun, second runners-up for Rhythmic Yoga at the Under-17 category for 2019 National School Games, football juggling by Amit Biswas, a young football juggler, with speech and hearing impairment and a medley of folk songs and dances across all states of India, ending with the anthem of Atletico-De-Kolkata.

Pictures – Click KGP, Inter IIT Sports Meet Facebook Page