Guwahati, Feb 29: Curtains came down on the “4th Khelo India University Games (KIUG) 2023, Ashtalakshmi” with Assam sports minister Nandita Gorlosa officially declaring the Games closed at the Sarusajai Sports Complex here on Thursday evening.
Chandigarh University clinched the overall championships of KIUG 2023, for the first time in four editions, with a total of 71 medals, including 32 gold, 18 silver and 21 bronze.
Notably, boxers of Chandigarh University sealed the top spot in the medal tally as they added five gold, one silver and four bronze medals to ensure that none of their close contenders even had an outside chance of staking claim to the top spot.
Vikash (men’s 51-54kg), Harsh (men’s 57-60 kg), Deepak (men’s 60-63.5kg), Priya (women’s 54-57kg) and Pranjal (women’s 66-70kg) clinched the gold medals for Chandigarh University.
Lovely Professional University were a distant second with 20 gold, 14 silver and eight bronze while Guru Nanak Dev University finished third with 12 gold, 20 silver and 19 bronze.
Defending champions Panjab University came up with a late surge winning five gold, two silver and three bronze medals from the boxing competitions – the men’s event was held in Gangtok, Sikkim, while women in Nehru Stadium, Guwahati – to finish fourth with a tally of 12 gold, 12 silver and 16 bronze.
Second edition champions Jain University, which led the chart for the first few days, thanks to their domination of the swimming races, finished fifth with a total of 12 gold, seven silver and six bronze medals.
But it was the overall prowess of Chandigarh University that made the ultimate difference as they bagged seven golds from wrestling, eight from athletics, three each from weightlifting and swimming, two from fencing and one each from kabaddi, rugby, judo and badminton each.
Chandigarh University has been on the rise since finishing 34th in the first edition in Odisha. They finished 20th in the second edition and had improved their position to 11th in the last edition in Lucknow.
Speaking about the transformation of the contingent, university coordination manager Mahesh Jaitely said a change in the sports policy of the university was responsible for this improvement.
“We increased the diet money for children three times and also increased the prize money for medal winners substantially (to attract sports talent),” he said.
Swimmers Pratyasa Ray of Utkal University with four gold, one silver and one bronze was the most successful female athlete of the Games while the honour of the most successful male athlete went to Jain University’s Xavier Michael Dsouza with four gold medals.
The fourth edition of the Games also saw five new Games records set in athletics.
Vikash of Chandigarh University created the first record of the Games on day one of the athletics competition in men’s 1500 metres while javelin thrower Jyoti (Chaudhary Devi Lal University), pole vaulter M Gowtham and long jumper Vishnu (University of Madras) and 800 metres runner Amandeep Kaur of Panjab University added to that list over the next two days.
In the javelin throw event, Chandigarh University’s Deepika set a new Games record in her third throw only for Jyoti to eclipse her mark and get her name in the record books.