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Glasgow CWG: Despite axed sports, India hold their top-five ground
India secured fourth place at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, winning 39 medals despite the absence of many strong sports, setting a hopeful stage for 2030.
Mumbai: The last time India finished outside the five best performing nations at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) was before the turn of the century, at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur edition.
India’s fourth-place finish in the medals table of the 2026 Glasgow CWG, in that sense, may seem par for the course.
But in a 10-sport edition that had no takers until a last-minute scramble and was heavily downsized with most of the country’s traditionally strong sports axed, the Indian contingent in Glasgow still managed to stand its ground. And that India still managed to keep their place among the top five nations with 39 medals (13 gold, 17 silver, 9 bronze) is a creditable statement.
It’s a statement that also augers well for what’s to come at the end of the next four-year cycle – the 2030 CWG in Ahmedabad where India will eye a bigger push on home turf.
After the last home CWG in New Delhi in 2010, where the hosts crossed the 100 mark, India’s total medals hovered between 60 and 70 across the next three editions.
2022 Birmingham’s tally was noteworthy given shooting, the biggest contributor for India in its CWG history, had been axed.
Many sports removed
2026 Glasgow’s tally is even more so, given sports that contributed to almost half of India’s total count four years ago were not around. That included wrestling (12 medals), table tennis (7), badminton (6), squash (2), hockey (2) and cricket (1).
The drop from Birmingham to Glasgow could have been steep. Instead, India held relatively firm – propelled by the medal rush in the final stretch and medals from para sports, particularly para athletics from an Indian lens, getting integrated to the overall volume.
That India held firm despite weightlifting somewhat losing its grip – one of the country’s most productive CWG disciplines went from 10 medals and 3 gold in 2022 to 8 medals and 1 gold in 2026 – also shows the degree to which other sports stepped up.
Leading the way were boxing, athletics and, the surprise package of these Games, judo.
Even with an asterisk of the level and competitiveness of the sport at the CWG, boxing delivered for India, and how. From three gold medals each in 2018 and 2022, boxers pooled in more than double of that (seven), and half of the contingent’s overall gold count in Glasgow. The women grabbed more gold (8) than the men (5), and boxing where Indian women swept five of the seven titles on offer, was largely responsible for that.
The upcoming Asian Games, though, will be a clearer assessment ground of where the boxers are truly at, especially with the bigger picture of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Athletics medals double
Glasgow’s Scotstoun Stadium saw the most number of Indians step on to the podium. India’s track and field group doubled the medals from Birmingham (8) to Glasgow (16). Unlike Birmingham, though, this included para athletics, where Indians won six medals, and more significantly, all three gold.
A champion from among able-bodied athletes may not have come (there was one each in 2022, 2018 and 2014) but the double-digit medals reflect the continued growth of Indians in athletics, which still maintains some competitive quality at the CWG.
Gulveer Singh and Tejaswin Shankar epitomised that growth by taking Indian track and field to uncharted territory.
If Avinash Sable’s 3,000m steeplechase silver in Birmingham broke a long-standing Kenyan clean sweep in that event, Gulveer’s 5,000-10,000m double in Glasgow set new ground for an Indian distance runner.
If Gulveer became the first Indian to win two athletics medals in a single CWG edition, Birmingham high jump bronze medallist Tejaswin added another in a different discipline in Glasgow. Decathlons can be gruelling for athletes even at peak fitness, and here was Tejaswin with a flared up patellar tendonitis not just starting in it, completing it, but also claiming bronze. It was the first medal by an Indian in the event.
Yashvir Singh’s bronze to go with the ever-bankable Neeraj Chopra’s silver also showed the depth in Indian javelin, which had two from the country on the podium for the first time at the CWG.
And how incredible were those couple of gold medals from Indian judokas? Asmita Dey and Harsh Singh took Indian judo where it had never been before in these Games. It was an incredible show, even more so against the backdrop of the sport’s administrative and doping issues back home. Judo was by far the most surprising storyline at this CWG.
The surprising storyline from the previous CWG, however, couldn’t quite back it up. Lawn bowls accounted for two medals in 2022. With both those events trimmed from the programme and the conditions and format changed drastically and indoors, India couldn’t repeat their Birmingham bowls bash.
Glasgow, though, was no pooper. Condensed and compact it may have been, but it put on a fairly commendable show over 10 days. As did India in it, no matter what wasn’t there.
What will be there in four years will be a home Commonwealth Games. Over to Ahmedabad, then.
