A student clears a hurdle at the BIT sports meet in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Feb. 6: Birla Institute of Technology, Patna, turned into a battlezone today with members of four teams jostling with each other at the Annual Athletic Meet 2011.

The meet, in its fourth year, saw departmental teams from electric and electronic engineering (EEE), electronic communication (ECE), computer science and English (CSE) and civil production and information technology mechanism (CPIM).

The institute’s media co-ordinator, Om Prakash, said: “We have 27 events at the meet, including track and field, high jump, tug-of-war and others. We started off the day at 6am with a 5,000-metre marathon. Around 16 students took part in the event. The sporting spirit was evident from the faces of the participants. It is important to be enthusiastic about sports.”

Radhe Poyang, a third year student of the institute, was highly impressed with the marathon champion, Rithambhara. Poyang said: “This is the third consecutive year Rithambhara has won the race.”

In subsequent events later in the day, the cheerleaders gave enthusiastic support to their respective teams. While the cheerleaders were ready with slogans to boost up the morale of their teams, they were not far behind in breaking the concentration of the opponents.”

Shraddha Prakash, one of the CSE cheerleaders, kept shouting for her team. She was confident of her team’s performance at the event. She said: “We are in an advantageous position as we have the best players in our team. Kalyani, Niharika and Aarti are extremely good at high jump. I am confident that they will win.”

Shraddha’s trust in her teammates was not ill founded. Aarti Kumari won the high jump event with a jump of 1.15m. A fourth year student, Aarti, told The Telegraph: “This victory is very special for me. This is my final year at the institute and what better way to leave than a victory for the team.” First year student Nishilata of EEE came second with a jump of 1.13m.

Luck was on the side of CPIM today at the tug-of-war event as they won the toss and got the side of their preference. Once the sports-in-charge, Suresh Singh Yadav, flagged off the start of the tug-of-war, the fight among the 10 members on each side started. CPIM overcame their opponent CSE in a few minutes. CPIM will now fight it out in the final tomorrow with ECE, which defeated EEE today.

Birla Institute of Technology director T.K. Srivastava said: “The best of three in every event are awarded gold, silver and bronze medal. The individual scores of the participants will be tabulated to adjudge the overall winner. The prize distribution ceremony will be held at 2pm tomorrow.”