India has pulled off a rare clean sweep at the world’s biggest school-level physics contest. All five students who represented the country at the 56th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) 2026 in Bucaramanga, Colombia, returned home with gold medals — and that perfect scorecard has pushed India to a joint World No. 1 finish alongside China, Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea and Taiwan.
More than 380 students from 87 countries took part this year, which makes the achievement even more striking. Every single member of the Indian team stood on the podium, something the country has managed only once before, back in 2018.
Who Are India’s Gold Medal Winners
The five students who made the country proud are:
- Kanishk Jain – Pune, Maharashtra
- Riddhesh Anant Bendale – Indore, Madhya Pradesh
- Rishit Garg – Dwarka, New Delhi
- Shresth Suraiya – Mumbai, Maharashtra
- Svarit Joshi – Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Each of them cleared two gruelling five-hour papers — one theoretical, one experimental — that are designed to test not textbook memory but genuine problem-solving under pressure. This year’s theory paper touched on topics like the cooling of paramagnetic materials, how ozone breaks apart under light, and the behaviour of electron-positron pairs. The experimental round asked students to work through heat transfer and fluid thermodynamics problems in a live lab setting. By most accounts, the Indian team handled both sections with unusual consistency, with a few students landing close to perfect scores in the theory paper.
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Why This Result Matters
This was India’s 27th appearance at the IPhO, and the country now has a decade-long streak of every single participant returning with a medal of some colour — gold, silver or bronze. Landing all five golds this year, and doing it well enough to tie for the top overall national ranking, is being seen as one of the strongest showings in the programme’s history.
The overall top individual prize this year went to a student from South Korea, while the best experimental performance award went to a participant from Iran. Across the competition, organisers handed out 51 gold, 80 silver and 97 bronze medals in total.
The Team Behind the Team
None of this happens without years of groundwork. In India’s case, that groundwork is handled by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and functioning under the Department of Atomic Energy. HBCSE runs the entire pipeline — from spotting talented students early, through multiple rounds of testing, right up to intensive training camps before the international round.
The Indian contingent in Colombia was led by Prof. Anwesh Mazumdar of HBCSE-TIFR and Dr. Leena Joshi of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, with Prof. Ananda Dasgupta of IISER Kolkata and Nisha Kelkar of Gogate-Joglekar College, Ratnagiri, accompanying the team as scientific observers.
Reacting to the result, DAE Secretary and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Ajit Kumar Mohanty called it a matter of genuine national pride, crediting the students’ hard work along with years of sustained effort from the HBCSE-TIFR programme. He also had a word of thanks for the parents and teachers who support these students long before they ever reach an international stage.
The Bigger Picture
Interestingly, HBCSE data suggests that roughly two out of three past Olympiad medallists eventually go on to pursue a PhD, while about a third of all medallists — whether or not they stay in academics — end up settling in India. It’s a small but telling sign of how these early wins tend to shape long careers in science.
For now, though, the moment belongs to five teenagers who walked into a lab in Colombia and walked out with gold — and put India right at the top of the world rankings while they were at it.
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