Mumbai, Maharashtra, 19th of July, 2026 : India performed exceptionally well at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) 2026 held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from 10 to 19 July 2026, with all four students bagging gold medals!
The students were:
Debadatta Priyadarshi (GOLD) from Bhubaneshwar, Odisha
Harshit Singla (GOLD) from Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab
Kabeer Chillar (GOLD) from Delhi
Sandeep Kuchi GOLD) from Hyderabad, Telangana
There were four Jury Members from India: Prof. Subhajit Bandyopadhyay as Head Mentor, Dr. Indrani Sen (HBCSE, Mumbai) as Mentor, Dr. Anubendu Adhikary (IIT Kharagpur) and Dr. Jayasree Gopalakrishnan (NES Ratnam College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Mumbai) as Scientific Observers.
In the country-wise medals tally, India was placed at the first position, jointly with China, Vietnam, and Individual Participants Group B (from Russia). This year’s IChO had 363 students from 93 countries, making it the biggest IChO till date. This is India’s best performance in IChO with the first-ever all-gold haul!
The competition had both experimental and theoretical components.
The theoretical exam had 9 problems on identifying composition of a blue solution made from plant extracts and a yellow stone from a coal deposit (apparently also found in Avicenna’s lab); kinetics of oscillatory BZ reaction; making porous framework materials (called COFs) using different functionalized organic compounds; estimating the mass of Uranium used in historic 1966 detonation to put off the natural gas fire in Urtabulak (after a blaze of 3 years); decoding structure of a chiral cardiolipin (a kind of phosphoester, part of intracellular membranes) having four identical fatty acid residues; using novel carbon allotropes —cyclocarbons— to form nanosized molecular belt by stabilizing it with a macrocyclic metal complex; nitrogen fixation in ammonia production plants using transition metal catalysts; catalytic reduction of atmospheric CO2 along with use of photosensitizers for enhanced efficiency; and reactions of synthetic analogues of cyclodextrins, testing students on stereochemical and regio-specific transformations.
The experimental exam consisted of 3 problems involving (i) synthesis of a metal complex using given (unknown reagents) and analysis of its composition by qualitative analysis and complexometric titration; (ii) identifying 20 given mixtures of biochemicals (such as glucose, urea, uric acid, cholestrol’s ester and a oil) by using given 5 enzyme mixtures through microscale tests; and (iii) identifying compositions of 3 acid mixtures through pH-metric titrations followed by analysis of two indicator solutions (one natural indicator from red cabbage and another mixture of two indicators) through pH-metry.
We congratulate the students and the rest of the delegation for their excellent performance! The Chemistry Olympiad cell of HBCSE and the resource pool of external teachers and mentors deserve appreciation for preparing the team well during the orientation and pre-departure camps held at HBCSE.
This was the 27th appearance of India at the IChO. In all these years, 32% of our students have got gold medals, 51% silver, and 17% bronze. In the last ten appearances, the percentages of gold and silver medals have been 43% and 53%, respectively.
We thank the National Steering Committee on Science Olympiads, teacher organisations and the funding agencies of the Govt. of India (DAE, DST and MoE) for their continued strong support of the Olympiad programme which enables us to showcase Indian talent on the international arena.
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