The 58-year-old rich legacy of Inter-IIT Sports Meet

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur is all set to host the 54th edition of the Inter IIT Sports Meet from 14 December 2019. The sports meet, which will be held across IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bhubaneswar campuses, will see over 3,500 students participating from all the 23 IITs across the country. The nine-day meet, which will extend till 22 December will see students of the institutions participating across 12 different sports and games -- athletics, badminton, basketball, chess, cricket, football, hockey, lawn tennis, squash, table tennis, volleyball and weightlifting. 

The Inter-IIT Sports Meet holds a rich legacy being the largest Inter-College tournament in India which dates back to 1961. Since then, the meet is being held every year in December, with the Aquatics events preceding in the month of October. With only five IITs existing back then, the first Meet was held at IIT Bombay, that saw IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi and the hosts participating in five sports. IIT Kharagpur emerged as the champions of the maiden edition. Since then, the meet is being carried out uninterruptedly, except on three occasions.

In 1971, the meet was called off owing to the Indo-Pakistan war and in 1992, the meet which was supposed to be held at IIT Bombay, had to be cancelled because of the communal riots that broke that year. The 2015 meet that was supposed to be held at IIT Madras was washed out due to unpredictable rains.

The seven old IITs take turns hosting the event. It is the longest-running Inter-collegiate meet in India. Out of the 53 editions held so far, IIT Madras has emerged as winners 22 times, followed by IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur winning 12 times each.

The golden jubilee edition of the meet was hosted by IIT Bombay in October and December 2014. Swimmer Virdhawal Khade graced the opening ceremony of the Aquatics Meet. The Opening Ceremony of the main event was graced by the presence of cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. 

The 51st edition of the meet was hosted by IIT Kanpur in October and December 2016. The IIT Madras aquatic team won the Aquatic Meet, IIT Kanpur emerged as overall champions.

The next edition unfolded at IIT Madras, where IIT Bombay were declared the overall champions.

IIT Guwahati hosted the 53rd Inter IIT Sports Meet. It was the silver jubilee year for the institute. Also, it was the first time when Para-powerlifting event was introduced. The Aquatics Meet opening ceremony was graced by the presence of swimmer Sajan Prakash, who has the highest number of National Records in short course and long course swimming events. The Chief Guest for the Main Meet's opening ceremony was Shiny Abraham, who represented India in over 80 international meets and was the first Indian woman to reach the semi-finals of an Olympic event. The ceremony also had Rio Paralympics gold medalist, Mariyappan Thangavelu as its guest of honour.

IIT Delhi ranked first in the overall points tally for the championship with a whopping 106.8 points, while IIT Roorkee secured the second position with 80.4 points and was closely followed by IIT Kharagpur with 80 points. The hosts, IIT Guwahati, finished at 7th position with 35.4 points.