Lucknow/Noida/Varanasi: Panjab University, Chandigarh (PUC), regained their overall champions crown after a gap of one edition of the Khelo India University Games, finishing at the top with 69 medals in the 2022 edition held in Uttar Pradesh.
Despite a clean sweep of gold medals in Fencing, Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar, fell short on the final day of competitions and finished second, the organisers informed in a release on Saturday.
PUC therefore finished with an overall tally of 69 medals including 26 gold, 17 silver and 26 bronze medals. GNDU amassed 24 gold, 27 silver and 17 bronze medals to finish second and in the top three for the very first time. Jain University, Karnataka, last time’s champions, were third with 16 gold, 10 silver and six bronze medals.
Jain University, however, will have the solace of having the most successful male and female athletes of the KIUG 2022. Both of them belong to Swimming where Siva Sridhar bossed the men’s section with a total of 11 medals including eight gold while Shrungi Bandekar won 5 gold and 4 silver medals in the women’s section.
National Games champion Yash Ghanghas was the other star attraction on the final day, thrilling all at the B.B.D. University grounds in Lucknow, to pick up the gold for his Chaudhary Bansi Lal University (CBLU) in the Men’s 100+kg category in Judo.
The other four gold medals on the final day went to Mumbai University (Judo Women’s 78+kg), Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), who won the men’s group traditional Yogasana gold at the SAC hall of the Indian Institute of Technology-Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU) campus in Varanasi and Chandigarh University (CU) and Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU), Rohtak, who picked up two gold medals in Weightlifting at the G.B. University in Gautambuddh Nagar’s Greater Noida, respectively.
As many as 131 of the 203 Universities who finally participated, won medals at the Games, where at least 11 new Games records were created over 12 competition days. The Games were held across nine venues in four cities of UP namely Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Gautambuddh Nagar. The Shooting competition was held in Delhi. Water Sports made its debut at these Games with the Rowing competitions taking place in Gorakhpur.
(IANS)
