Winning Indian team at the International Chemistry Olympiad

Indian STEM students continue their victory streak in Olympiads this year with standout performance by India in both Chemistry and Biology Olympiads that concluded on July 19.

A team of four Indian students have all bagged gold medals in the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) 2026 held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from July 10-19, 2026. This was India’s best performance in IChO with the first-ever all-gold haul. India was placed at the first position, jointly with China, Vietnam and others. This year’s IChO had 363 students from 93 countries, making it the biggest IChO till date.

Similarly, at the 37th International Biology Olympiad (IBO) 2026 held in Vilnius, Lithuania from 12-19 July, 2026, the Indian team of four students won 1 Gold and 3 Silver.

What stands out is the truly diverse profile of the winners who come beyond India’s metros.

As per information shared by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (HBCSE TIFR), the winners of the Chemistry Olympiad were Debadatta Priyadarshi (GOLD) from Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, Harshit Singla (GOLD) from Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab, Kabeer Chillar (GOLD) from Delhi and Sandeep Kuchi (GOLD) from Hyderabad.

The Biology team comprised Bhavyaa Gunwal (GOLD) from Mahendragarh, Haryana, Soumil Maity (SILVER) from Howrah, West Bengal, Nishit Kalani (SILVER) from Pali, Rajasthan, and Anmol Kumar (SILVER) from Mansa, Punjab.

India’s track record at the Chemistry Olympiad has been improving over years with the last ten appearances having a strike rate of 43 per cent gold and 53 per cent silver medals, HBCSE said. This was India’s 27th appearance of India at the IChO. In all these years, 32 per cent of our students have got gold medals, 51 per cent silver and 17 per cent bronze.

In case of the Biology challenge, this was India’s 26th appearance at the IBO. Of the 104 students so far, 17 have received gold medals, 69 silver, 17 bronze and 1 honourable mention. In the last ten years, the gold and silver strike rates have been 25 per cent and 68 per cent, respectively.

The Chemistry Olympiad had both experimental and theoretical components.

The the theory paper covered advanced chemistry topics drawn from real-world and research contexts such as identifying the composition of a blue solution from plant extracts and a yellow mineral from a coal deposit and estimating the mass of uranium used to extinguish the Urtabulak natural gas fire in 1966, among others. Students also completed three hands-on laboratory exercises.

In Biology, the testing pushed the boundaries of secondary school biology through exams designed by the Vilnius University Life Sciences Centre. These lasted six hours in total and required students to tackle complex, hands-on experimental tasks across highly specialised domains.

Published on July 19, 2026