BIMSTEC U23 Athletics Championships 2026: Schedule, Indian Squad, Medal Contenders and Full Details

The BIMSTEC U23 Athletics Championships 2026 will make their debut at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, from November 25 to 27. Athletes from seven Bay of Bengal nations will compete across 32 medal events, with India fielding a 95-member squad that includes several record-breakers from this season’s national competitions.

This guide covers everything you need to know about the BIMSTEC U23 Athletics Championships 2026: what the event is, how India picked its team, the full squad, and the Indian athletes most likely to win medals in Bhubaneswar, with the marks that got them there. Every fact has been checked against AFI announcements, news reports and our own results coverage, and the fact-check table at the end shows the status of each claim.

What are the BIMSTEC U23 Athletics Championships?

BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, is a regional group formed in 1997. Its seven members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka from South Asia, and Myanmar and Thailand from Southeast Asia.

Sport has become part of that cooperation. India hosted the first BIMSTEC Aquatics Championships in New Delhi in February 2024, and the U23 Athletics Championships are the next step. AFI and the Ministry of External Affairs are organising the meet together, with the aim of building regional sporting ties and giving young athletes international competition close to home.

The Kalinga Stadium is a fitting host. It has become one of India’s main international athletics venues, staging a World Athletics Continental Tour meet in 2025 and a Silver-level Continental Tour meet in 2026, as well as this year’s National Inter-State Championships.

The event programme

There are 14 individual events each for men and women: the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m, short hurdles (110m for men, 100m for women), 400m hurdles, high jump, long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus and javelin. There are also 4x100m and 4x400m relays for both men and women, for 32 medal events in all.

Note: the detailed day-by-day timetable had not been published when we wrote this. We will add it once AFI releases it.

How India picked its BIMSTEC U23 squad

AFI said in late October that it would pick the team on results from two national meets held back to back:

• 6th Indian U23 Athletics Championships, Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur, 16 to 18 October 2026. Four meet records were broken on the final day.
• 41st National Junior Athletics Championships, JN Stadium, Chennai, 23 to 27 October 2026. Our daily reports recorded 15 national records across the five days.

The result is a squad that mixes U23 champions from Jaipur with the brightest juniors from Chennai, some of them still only 17. AFI announced the 95-member squad in early November. Each individual event has two athletes and a reserve, and three more athletes join each relay pool.

India’s medal contenders at the BIMSTEC U23 Championships

These are the Indian athletes who arrive in Bhubaneswar in the best form, based on their results in Jaipur and Chennai over the past month.

1. Neil Samraj R (100m, 200m, 4x100m)

The headline name in India’s squad. The 17-year-old from Tamil Nadu broke two U18 national records at the Junior Nationals in Chennai: 10.45 in the 100m and 21.03 in the 200m. He is the only Indian entered in two individual events, and he is in the 4x100m relay pool too. Racing against athletes up to 22 years old will be his biggest test yet.

2. Abinaya Rajarajan (100m, 4x100m)

India’s fastest junior woman. Abinaya won the women’s U20 100m in Chennai in a national record of 11.49. Kajal Vaja of Gujarat, runner-up to her in Chennai, joins her in the 100m.

3. Bhavana G (200m)

Bhavana G of Tamil Nadu won the women’s U20 200m in Chennai in a meet record of 23.82. That is faster than the 23.97 that won the U23 200m in Jaipur, where Sonika of Haryana beat Samriti Jamwal by one hundredth of a second. Sonika is Bhavana’s teammate in the 200m.

4. Tanu Chaudhary (400m)

Tanu Chaudhary of Uttar Pradesh broke Jisna Mathew’s 2015 meet record with 53.40 in the women’s U18 400m in Chennai. She is only 17, but that time would make her a strong contender in any regional U23 400m.

5. Karna Bag and Aryan Prajwal Kashyapa (400m hurdles)

One of the closest races in Jaipur. Karna Bag of West Bengal won the men’s U23 400m hurdles in a meet record of 50.27, just 0.01 ahead of Aryan Prajwal (50.28). Both go to Bhubaneswar, and a repeat of that duel could give India a one-two.

6. Dharanidharan T and Shashank Patil (javelin)

India’s javelin pair arrive with almost identical form. Dharanidharan T of Tamil Nadu won the men’s U20 javelin in Chennai with 76.18m. Shashank Patil of Karnataka won the U23 javelin in Jaipur with 76.16m. Javelin is India’s strongest event, and both will start as favourites.

7. Ambriesh K (high jump)

Ambriesh K of Tamil Nadu cleared 2.18m to win the men’s U20 high jump in Chennai, the highest jump of the championships. That is eight centimetres higher than the 2.10m that won the U23 title in Jaipur. His Chennai runner-up, Binoy B of Kerala (2.11m), is also in the team.

8. Daksh Bishnoi and Sadhana Ravi (triple jump)

Both triple jump champions from Chennai are in the team. Daksh Bishnoi of Punjab won the men’s U20 title with 15.74m, ahead of the 15.64m that won in Jaipur. Sadhana Ravi of Tamil Nadu won the women’s U20 title with 13.22m, almost a metre clear of the field.

9. Anshu and Riya Verma (shot put)

Anshu of Haryana broke the women’s U20 shot put meet record in Chennai with 15.58m, and her Haryana teammate Riya Verma took silver with 14.56m. The same pair now represent India.

10. The relay squads

The relay pools add more stars. Lodenge Ramu, who broke the U18 400m national record (46.80) in Chennai, joins the 4x400m pool. Savin Thingalaya, the U20 200m champion in Chennai (21.26), joins the 4x100m pool with Neil Samraj. In the women’s 4x100m pool, Mrithika, the U18 100m champion, joins Abinaya.

The rival to watch: could Puripol Boonson come to Bhubaneswar?

The biggest name in the region is Thailand’s Puripol Boonson, born on 13 January 2006, which makes him young enough for a U23 event. At the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, he won the 100m in a Games record of 9.90 and the 200m in 19.88, equalling the Asian record.

If Thailand sends him, the men’s sprints in Bhubaneswar would become a must-watch, with Neil Samraj chasing one of the fastest men in the world. Note: Thailand’s squad had not been announced when we wrote this, so it is not confirmed that Puripol will compete.

India’s men’s squad for the BIMSTEC U23 Championships

India’s women’s squad for the BIMSTEC U23 Championships

Events not on the BIMSTEC programme

The programme leaves out the hammer throw, pole vault, 3000m steeplechase, 10,000m, race walks and combined events. So some of the stars of the Jaipur U23 meet will not be in Bhubaneswar, including the two hammer meet record holders, Nirbhay Choudhary (66.32m) and Haqikat Grewal (55.46m), and heptathlon champion Bidisha Kundu (5,260 points).

Fact check: how we verified this guide