Republic Day Biathlon 2017

The IITB Biathlon climbs 10^th step

What can be a better way to start the group challenge of 2017, the best year of the block of few years to vision 2020. Governments across levels in India have been working hard to accelerate growth.  If with that, some real ventures grow fast, including internationally, we will have more exciting jobs, careers and future. Having crossed the milestones such as 10,000 students, IIT Bombay (IITB) is also embarking multiple actions under a strategic plan 2017-20.  We at the Group on Competitiveness (GoC) are proud @ contributions we have made for research in the area, as well as, CSR.  10^th IITB Biathlon is a good example of that CSR. Thanks to significant advance planning, response in registration was better. More importantly, conversion rate was far better, and we had more than 100 enthusiastic participants, including good  participation from M.Mgt., veteran athletes, regular practitioners and many first timers.  Important lessons emerged for many interested learners.

Here is just a glimpse of key highlights of the 10^th Biathlon:

• Enthusiasm of participants was amazing, many reported before time
• Start was given by Reddy Coach, the veteran behind many initiatives on campus such as Swimathon
• Participation in women category was far better this year; lead was provided by BTechs
• Spirit of run was stronger and many could complete the full biathlon, perhaps highest in recent events; several people who got late, ran with enthusiasm
• Regular practice helps in climbing heights. Some of the winners of this triathlon (see Table) practice regularly and have already completed full/half marathons/swimmathons or higher with good timing
• Professor Sameer Jadhav, Chairman Sports, graced the occasion to witness the spirit and give medals to winners in different categories (a photo below; many more can be seen at the link)
• On this auspicious occasion, winners were also given event T-shirts having creative design, thanks to efforts by IITB Sports Council

Table:  Leading athletes in different categories

	Students-Male (5km run+7km cycling)
1st position	Kuldeep Singh
2nd position	Anand Gaurav
3rd position	Manoj Kumar
	Campusites-Male (5km run+7km cycling)
1st position	Sahil Sharma
2nd position	Vagish Prasad
3rd position	Prof. Harish Phularia
	Students+Campusites-Female(1.4 km run+5km cycling)
1st position	Dhruti Shah
2nd position	Tanya Singh
3rd position	Mahika Raghunathan

 

 

Winners in different categorieswith Reddy Coach, volunteers and mentors 

Such noble initiatives couldn’t have sustained without active contributions of several stakeholders. We remember several energetic youth who have contributed significantly to this 10 mile journey of IITB Biathlon, e.g. Pranusha, Ankur, Lalit and Vivek.  Sneha and team of researchers, Rahul, Vishwas and Rayees, have contributed significantly to this event. They have been building on good work of other researchers at SJMSOM.  Some of them have done very exciting experiments in research (as can be seen from their basic knowledge shared; pl. visit the urls by clicking,…).  Dhondi Sai Krishna, an amazing photographer has been contributing to Biathlon. Get a feel for event through his beautiful photography.

From coaching community, Dr. Reddy Coach has been a source of strong support. Prof. Sameer Jadhav, Prof. Sharat Chandran, Prof. B K Chakravarthy,…have all been contributing. Institute sports council has been cooperating for the event for years. This year, Aditya Kumawat, Sahil Dhingra and his team put considerable efforts. We thank all of above and many other hidden contributors, whom we couldn’t acknowledge here.

With such a milestone, we hope to plan next level event in coming planning cycle, once team has been trained adequately.  We are getting feel for difficulties ahead and hence are looking for associates keen on next level challenges. Wish to explore such evolving experiments, build capabilities through unique courses such as ‘International Competitiveness’ and the multi-stage selection process to take the challenge of becoming an associate of IITB ‘Group on Competitiveness’.

We are pleased to invite you to an information event at IITB that will bring professors of several leading Japanese universities to interact directly with IITB students keen on doing research in Japan. If you are keen, keep evening of March 9 free, and seek out details.