The third iteration of Bimal Ch Goswami Memorial IMF North East Zonal Sport Climbing Championship successfully concluded on Monday. The two-day event began on July 23 at the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE) campus in Guwahati’s Lalmati.
The event had been organised jointly by the Assam Sport Climbing Association (ASCA), Assam Mountaineering Association (AMA) and IIE in the memory of Bimal Ch. Goswami, who was one of the pioneers to promote Sport Climbing in the North Eastern Region of India and a veteran mountaineer of Assam.
Including Assam, interested athletes from all over the Northeast from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim took part in the event. A total of 54 participants won medals at the three events – lead, speed, and bouldering which was organised at three levels of sub-junior, junior and senior levels.
The winners will get the opportunity to take part in the next stage at the national level event in the upcoming days.
The memorial competition is organised every year, though in light of the pandemic, the competitions had been stalled for the past two years.
Meanwhile, the chief guest at the closing ceremony was acting chief justice of Gauhati High Court, N. Kotiswar Singh who attended the event alongside his wife.
ACS Nibedan Das Patowary of the Directorate of Sports and Youth Welfare in the Assam government, Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF) North East Zone President Padma Shri Gurmayum Anita Devi and NEDFi Deputy General Manager and Assam Sports Climbing Association Vice President Manoj Das also attended the event as guests of honour.
All the winners were presented with medals and certificates at the event. Longdamba Yumname of Manipur was adjudged the best performer in the entire competition.
It may be mentioned that an artificial bouldering wall or climbing wall was put together for the first time at the IIE campus with the help of Directorate of Sports and Youth Welfare.
Athletes from Manipur bagged the most points (36) with nine gold medals, two silver medals and five bronze medals, while representatives of Arunachal Pradesh won a total of 19 points with two gold, five silver and three bronze medals.
Assam came in at fourth having accumulated 16 points with two gold medals, four silver and two bronze medals.
