Prateek Tanmay
3 min readBengaluruJul 19, 2026 09:34 AM IST
In less than a week, two other high-school student teams from India have outperformed at the International Chemistry and Biology Olympiads, thereby continuing the spree of podium finishes at the Olympiads.
The Indian team that participated in the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) in Uzbekistan bagged four gold medals. They were tied with teams from China and Vietnam and an individual Russian student participant.
Debadatta Priyadarshi (Bhubaneswar), Harshit Singhal (Mandi Gobindgarh), Kabeer Chhillar (Delhi) and Sandeep Kuchi (Hyderabad) represented India at the IChO-2026 at Tashkent, which concluded on July 19. This is Priyasarshi’s and Kuchi’s second tryst at the podium at the IChO. In the 2025 edition in Dubai , Kuchi had won a gold medal while Priyadarshi had bagged silver along with fellow winners Devesh Bhaiya (gold) and Ujjwal Kesari(silver).
A total of 363 students from 93 countries participated in this year’s IChO. The 2026-edition of IChO saw the Indian team showcase the country’s best ever performance in its 27 years of participation in this international competition, said the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE-TIFR), Mumbai.
Team India at the International Chemistry Olympiad that concluded in Uzbekistan on July 19 (Photo: HBCSE-TIFR)
The Indian team at the IChO was jointly mentored by Subhajit Bandyopadhyay of IISER-Kolkata and Indrani Das Sen (HBCSE), and the team’s scientific observers included Anubendu Adhikary of IIT-Kharagpur and Jayasree Gopalakrishnan from NES Ratnam College, Mumbai.
Parallelly, another four-member Indian team that participated in the 38th International Biology Olympiad (IBO) managed to win four medals.
The Indian winners at this year’s IBO, which ended on July 19, were Bhavyaa Gunwal (Mahendragarh) who won gold, Soumil Maity (Howrah), Nishit Kalani (Pali) and Anmol Kumar (Mansa), who settled for silver each. They competed among 307 students representing 78 countries. Their final competitions involved six-hours of practical laboratory sessions that tested them on a range of topics from molecular biology, biochemistry, animal physiology, animal morphology and systematics and plant computational biology. Additionally, they attempted research-centric theoretical tasks that lasted for another six hours.
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This team was mentored by Anupama Ronad (HBCSE) and Rekha Vartak (formerly with HBCSE) and the scientific observers were Ranjitsingh Devkar of MS University, Baroda, Siddhesh Ghag, UM DAE CEBS.
Just a week ago, an Indian team topped the International Physics Olympiad held in Columbia. India ended with a podium finish with China, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan.
HBCSE hand-picks, trains and mentors these students for the international Olympiads. All Indian Olympiad teams undergo an elaborate preparation phase conducted by HBCSE-TIFR, under the Department of Atomic Energy. At the Olympiads, the students are put through both theory and practical components and tested for their problem-solving skills and abilities and several months are spent in these preparations.
