Bhubaneswar: DAV Public School Unit-8 and AIIMS, Bhubaneswar emerged champions in the Junior and Senior categories, respectively, in the sixth edition of Mettle Meet which witnessed a fierce battle of wits and a fantastic finish at Hotel Crystal Crown here, Sunday.
In the Senior category, SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack and NIT, Rourkela earned the first runner-up and second runner-up status respectively. Last year’s winner AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, who led the finals till the last round, retained the crown. Earlier, they had achieved the first runner-up and second runner-up status in 2017 and 2019.
Similarly, DAV Public School, Unit-8, Bhubaneswar emerged victorious with a big lead over first runner up KIIT International School while DAV Public School, Kalinga Nagar stood third in the Junior category.
After an intense screening in the prelims, 16 finalists — eight each from the Junior and Senior groups — qualified for the finals. Altogether, as many as 82 teams from schools and colleges across the state participated in the quiz competition.
“Mettle Meet is like another child of us and it has grown bigger and bigger every year. We have seen increasing number of students in this competition every year. It started in 2016 with the motive of reviving the dying art of quizzing and giving a platform to the bright ones to bring back the joy of quizzing,” said Adyasha Satpathy, Chief Executive, OrissaPOST.
She said both the prelims and finals were exciting and all the teams, which participated in the event, deserved to win. “In my eyes, all are winners,” she said.
Tathagata Satpathy, Editor, OrissaPOST said, “I hope that OrissaPOST Mettle Meet encourages quizzing. It is not just answering questions but makes you think out of the box and teaches you not to go through the obvious routes but to do something different. It makes you think elaborately.”
“Quizzes of this kind help raise the ability of participants to think and grow. In Mettle Meet, everyone is a winner and nobody is a loser,” he said.
Quizmaster Ajay Poonia said the standard in the competition was quite high in the finals of the categories.
The event was watched live by many on social media platforms of the newspaper’s digital ventures. The winners received Rs 1,00,000 as prize money while first and second runners-up got Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000, respectively, in both Senior and Junior categories.
Pratyush Dhal of DAV, Unit 8 said, “We had prepared for the finals for the last six months after we missed the finals last year. We started the finals with negative but took that as a challenge and tried to fight back. Quiz master Ajay Poonia’s questions were very tricky. We tried to count the competitors point and then tried to maintain the lead.”
Bighnesh Das of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar said, “We became the champions of Mettle Meet for the second time this year. Mettle Meet is a great platform for quiz talents.”
PNN