Patna: Bihar government’s sustained efforts to nurture, promote, incentivise sporting activities and sporting culture have started paying off rich dividends as the state has significantly upped its ranking from 28th position to 14th winning a record 36 medals at Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) 2025, Bihar.
The games concluded on Thursday with Bihar making its presence felt emphatically at national level, first by successfully organising the 7th edition of mega sporting event and subsequently improving its ranking and medals tally.
This is Bihar’s best ever performance at KIYG with the state fetching the highest 36 medals that included seven gold, 11 silver and 18 bronze. Bihar has won two gold medals each in Thang Ta, Rugby, Athletics and one gold medal in Sepak Takraw.
It has witnessed a growth of 620 per cent over the last Khelo India Youth Games held in 2023 where it won five medals including two gold, two silver and one bronze. This was state’s second best performance.
Bihar ranked 21st and 24th at 6th and 5th Khelo India Youth Games respectively, though it remained at 28th position in all the initial four Khelo India Youth Games that began in 2018.
The state could barely open its account with a bronze medal in 2018 games.
In the year 2019, it won five medals including one silver and four bronze but the medals tally increased to nine in 2020 due to hard work put in by athletes. Out of nine medals, the state could win just one gold and silver each and seven bronze medals.
But the next year 2021 witnessed a sharp decline in medals tally to just two. Bihar’s overall medals tally was seven in 2022 and five in 2023.
But the state government’s sustained efforts and endeavours to give talents their wings by promoting, protecting and incentivising athletes have reflected in their performance that pushed the state’s ranking to 14 at the games with medals tally swelling to 36.
The state- which is known for its rich historical and cultural prosperity with educational background- done a lot in recent years to improve the state of sports affairs in Bihar with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar government taking umpteen measures to build infrastructure to create favourable environment to providing for sporting success right from panchayat level to state level that included developing top-notch facilities in the state.
The government has provided other facilities such as national and international coaches, training, and support staff. It has come out with sports scholarship scheme giving scholarship ranging between Rs 3 lakh to Rs 20 lakh for different categories of players.
Besides, it has also come out a scheme ‘Medal Lao, Naukri Pao’ as per which players winning medals at national and international level get government jobs.
The government also came out with another scheme titled “Mashaal” which is a talent hunt competition to identify, train and hone children’s talent at school level to make them compete at national and international level.
On Bihar’s performance at the Khelo India Youth Games, Bihar State Sports Authority Director General Raveendran Sankaran said “This is Bihar. We do not write history, rather we create history. Our talented athletes have given wings to their dreams. It is the outcome of four years of hard work. Athletes were given training by specialised coaches of their fields. Even foreign coaches gave training to the athletes.”
Sports department and Bihar State Sports Authority were formed to give special attention to the development of sports, Sankaran said adding that “our athletes have worked hard for the games that helped them in honing their games.”
