Guwahati, Feb 29 (IANS): Chandigarh University clinched the overall championships of the 4th Khelo India University Games 2023, Ashtalakshmi with their boxers adding 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.

The Khelo India University Games 2023, which started on February 17, were officially declared closed by Assam sports minister Nandita Gorlosa at the Sarusajai Sports Complex on Thursday.

Vikash (Men 51-54kg), Harsh (Men 57-60kg), Deepak (Men 60-63.5kg), Priya (women 54-57kg) and Pranjal (women 66-70kg) clinched the gold medals for Chandigarh University, who took home the KIUG crown for the first time in four editions with a total of 71 medals, including 32 gold, 18 silver and 21 bronze.

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 and were only contingent apart from the champions to cross the 50-medal mark.

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 medal tally for the first few days thanks to their domination of the swimming races, finished fifth with a total of 12 gold, 7 silver and 6 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 Co-ordination Manager Dr. 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 added.

Swimmer 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 in North-East India also saw five new Games records being set in athletics. Vikash of Chandigarh University created the first record of the Games on day 1 of the athletics competition in men’s 1500m and javelin thrower Jyoti (Chaudhary Devi Lal University), pole vaulter M Gowtham and long jumper Vishnu (University of Madras) and 800m runner Amandeep Kaur of Panjab University added to that list over the next two days.

In the javelin throw event, Chandigarh University’s Deepika had set a new Games record in her third throw only for Jyoti to eclipse her mark and get her name in the record books.