In some moments in sport, the medal table tells only half the story. India’s campaign at the Commonwealth Games 2026 in Glasgow is one such moment. On paper, the numbers appear modest compared with the country’s recent Commonwealth record: 39 medals, comprising 13 gold, 17 silver and nine bronze, placed India fourth in the final standings. Australia topped the table, followed by England and Canada, while India finished ahead of hosts Scotland despite both nations ending with 39 medals, because India had the stronger medal distribution. At first glance, 39 may seem disappointing next to India’s 61 medals at Birmingham in 2022. Yet Glasgow was never the same Games. It was a deliberately reduced edition, built around only 10 sports compared with the much larger programme of previous Commonwealth Games. Wrestling, badminton, table tennis, ṅhockey, cricket, squash and several other disciplines were removed, taking away some of India’s most dependable routes to the podium. In Birmingham, badminton, cricket, hockey, squash, table tennis and wrestling alone had produced 30 medals for India. Shooting, another historic strength, was also absent. Therefore, Glasgow cannot be understood simply through subtraction—61 in Birmingham against 39 in Glasgow. It has to be understood through context. India entered a Games in which several familiar medal-producing arenas had disappeared and still managed to remain among the top four nations. More importantly, athletes from disciplines that are sometimes overshadowed by India’s traditional Commonwealth strengths stepped forward and gave the campaign a different identity.

The Glasgow Games themselves represented a significant experiment in what the Commonwealth Games might look like in the future. Seventy-four nations competed across a compact programme of 10 sports, with 215 gold-medal events, while six sports also included para-sport competitions. The decision was closely connected to the financial and organisational pressures that have increasingly surrounded the Commonwealth Games. Victoria in Australia had originally been awarded the 2026 Games but withdrew in 2023 after projected costs escalated, leaving the Commonwealth Games Federation with limited time to find another host. Glasgow, which had successfully hosted the Games in 2014, stepped forward with existing infrastructure and a more economical model. Instead of constructing an enormous new sporting ecosystem, organisers relied on existing venues, four competition locations and existing hotels rather than a purpose-built athletes’ village. More than 434,000 fans attended across the 11 days of competition, demonstrating that a smaller Games could still attract public interest. But the reduced model came with consequences. For India, the absence of wrestling, badminton, hockey, table tennis, cricket and squash was not a minor scheduling detail; it fundamentally changed the competitive landscape. In Birmingham, those six sports had contributed 30 medals, including 13 golds. Wrestling alone had provided 12 medals, while table tennis had produced seven and badminton six. These were not peripheral disciplines in India’s Commonwealth story. They were among its foundations. Glasgow therefore presented Indian athletes with a different question: what happens when some of the country's most familiar roads to the podium suddenly disappear?

India’s answer was not to chase the past but to compete with what remained. Boxing became the clearest symbol of that adaptability. Indian boxers produced one of the most remarkable campaigns of the Games, collecting 10 medals, including seven gold and three silver. The women were particularly influential in that golden run. Preeti Pawar, Jaismine Lamboria, Sakshi Chaudhary, Priya Ghanghas and Arundhati Choudhary all stood on the highest step of the podium in their respective categories, while Lovlina Borgohain added a silver. Their victories were significant not merely because they increased India’s gold count, but because they illustrated the growing depth of Indian women’s boxing. On the men’s side, Sachin Siwach and Ankush Panghal also captured gold, while Jadumani Singh and Narender Berwal won silver. Every Indian boxer who reached the semi-finals eventually finished with a medal. The result gave India its biggest single-discipline contribution in Glasgow and showed what can happen when an event traditionally known for a few established stars opens its stage to a wider group of competitors. Boxing was not alone. Weightlifting continued to carry its familiar strength, producing eight medals, with Mirabai Chanu winning gold in the women’s 48kg category and securing her third successive Commonwealth Games title. Six silver medals and one bronze completed India’s weightlifting haul. In a Games where several established medal factories were closed, boxing and weightlifting became more than contributors; they became pillars holding up India’s campaign.

Yet some of Glasgow’s most meaningful stories came from athletes who were not simply continuing traditions but creating them. Gulveer Singh became one of the defining figures of India’s athletics campaign. His silver medal in the men’s 10,000m was India’s first-ever Commonwealth Games medal in that event, and his bronze in the 5,000m made him the first Indian track and field athlete to win two individual medals at a single edition of the Games. The achievement carries an even greater sense of possibility when his journey is considered. Gulveer’s running ability was identified after he competed in a 12-kilometre race during his first Army posting in Arunachal Pradesh in 2018. With no established background in competitive athletics, he finished first among more than 60 runners and was subsequently recommended for specialised training at the Army Sports Institute. Years later, he was standing on a Commonwealth podium. His Glasgow performance also formed part of a wider breakthrough period. In 2025, he won gold in both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea. In March 2026, he became the first Indian to run a half-marathon in under an hour, clocking 59:42 at the New York City Half Marathon. Glasgow added another chapter to that transformation. Neeraj Chopra returned to the Commonwealth podium with silver in the javelin, while Murali Sreeshankar, Sarvesh Kushare and Praveen Chithravel also won silver medals. Tejaswin Shankar created another historic moment by winning bronze in the decathlon, giving India its first Commonwealth Games medal in the event. These performances mattered because they expanded the boundaries of what India could expect from its athletics programme.

If Gulveer represented the emergence of a new distance-running identity, India’s para athletes represented something even more profound: the breaking of a long-standing barrier. The Indian para contingent won seven medals in Glasgow—three gold, two silver and two bronze—matching the country’s combined para-sport medal haul from all previous Commonwealth Games. Para athletics accounted for six of those medals and ended a 20-year wait for an Indian para-athletics podium at the Games. Sharmila Dhankar, Dilip Gavit and Soman Rana won gold, while Mohammed Basil and Shubham Juyal secured silver and Shilpa K. Shyla claimed bronze. Jhandu Kumar added another bronze in para powerlifting. These are numbers worth remembering, but numbers alone cannot express what they represent. A medal in sport is always the visible part of a much longer journey—training sessions that happen without applause, injuries that remain invisible to spectators, financial uncertainty, repeated selection battles and the quiet discipline required to continue when recognition is limited. For para athletes, the journey can carry additional barriers involving access, infrastructure and opportunity. Glasgow did not erase those challenges, but it gave their performances a larger stage. The seven-medal haul showed that para sport is not an accessory to India’s sporting story. It is part of the story itself. The campaign also offered a reminder that progress in sport should not be measured only by how many medals a nation adds to its historical collection, but by how many doors it opens for athletes who were previously waiting outside them.

Judo provided another glimpse of that changing sporting landscape. Asmita Dey and Harsh Singh won India’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medals in judo, while Yamini Mourya added silver and Unnati Sharma secured bronze. The achievement was significant precisely because it came from a discipline that had never previously given India Commonwealth gold. In the absence of several familiar sports, judo moved from the margins of the Indian medal conversation towards its centre. Athletics and para athletics together also produced 16 medals, creating a broader picture of Indian sporting growth. The medal tally by discipline—10 in boxing, 10 in athletics, eight in weightlifting, six in para athletics, four in judo and one in para powerlifting—shows how concentrated India’s success became in the sports that remained available. The pattern is worth examining because Glasgow was, in a sense, an unintended experiment. Remove some of India’s traditional strengths and what remains? The answer was not emptiness. There was boxing. There was athletics. There was weightlifting. There was judo. There was para sport. Athletes were willing to enter events in which India had never previously stood on the podium. This does not mean that the absence of wrestling, badminton, hockey, table tennis, cricket and squash should be dismissed. Their absence affected medal opportunities and deprived established athletes of an important international platform. PV Sindhu, Bajrang Punia and members of India’s hockey teams, among many others, were unable to compete in Glasgow because their sports were not included. Emerging athletes such as Anahat Singh and India’s young wrestlers also lost an opportunity to experience a major multi-sport stage.

That loss matters beyond the medal table. For many athletes, a Commonwealth Games medal is not simply a piece of metal placed around the neck. It can bring recognition, sponsorship opportunities, financial rewards from governments and sporting bodies, and sometimes access to long-term employment or other forms of security. When a sport disappears from the programme, the athletes competing in that sport lose more than one tournament. They lose a pathway. The financial reality behind Glasgow therefore deserves attention. The Commonwealth Games have increasingly faced the difficult question of how to remain viable when hosting a large multi-sport event can demand enormous public expenditure. Glasgow’s response was to make the Games smaller, more compact and more sustainable. That model may help protect the future of the event, but it also creates a delicate balance. If too many sports disappear, countries with particular sporting strengths can find their competitive identities altered overnight. India felt that change sharply. Its 39 medals were the country’s lowest overall Commonwealth tally in decades, yet the number cannot be separated from the programme in which those medals were won. India’s campaign was not a simple story of decline. Nor was it simply a story of triumph. It was a story of adaptation. The athletes were asked to compete in a Games that looked different from the one their predecessors had known, and many responded by creating new milestones of their own. That tension—between financial sustainability for the Games and sporting opportunity for athletes—may become one of the defining questions of the Commonwealth movement.

And now the story moves from Glasgow to Ahmedabad. India officially received the hosting baton at the Glasgow closing ceremony, beginning the countdown to the 2030 Commonwealth Games. Commonwealth Sport CEO Katie Sadleir has indicated that Ahmedabad could host a programme of around 15 to 17 sports, substantially larger than Glasgow’s 10-sport format. For India, that creates the possibility of a Commonwealth Games that brings back several disciplines that were missing in Glasgow while also preserving the opportunities created by the smaller edition. The challenge will be to build an event that is financially responsible without becoming so restricted that athletes lose meaningful opportunities. Glasgow has shown that a Commonwealth Games does not necessarily have to be enormous to matter. But it has also shown why the range of sports matters to countries whose sporting success is spread across different disciplines. India leaves Glasgow with 39 medals, fourth place on the table and a collection of firsts that may ultimately prove more important than the headline number: first Commonwealth medals in the men’s 10,000m and 5,000m, India’s first decathlon medal, its first judo gold medals and a para campaign matching the country’s entire previous Commonwealth para medal history. Most importantly, the Games offered a stage to women who did not merely participate in India’s success but powered a substantial part of it. Their victories, alongside the breakthroughs of athletes such as Gulveer Singh, Tejaswin Shankar and India’s para competitors, suggest that the country’s sporting future need not depend entirely on its old medal routes. Glasgow was smaller, but India’s sporting story became wider. As the baton moves to Ahmedabad, the question is no longer simply how many medals India can win. It is what kind of sporting culture it can build—one that preserves its traditional strengths, discovers new champions, expands opportunities for women and para athletes, and makes every podium a beginning rather than an ending. That may be the most enduring legacy India can carry from Glasgow to 2030.

References:

1. Brut. Commonwealth Games 2026: Complete List of India's Medal Winners in Glasgow.
2. DD India. Commonwealth Games 2026: India Finish Fourth with 39 Medals; Boxing Leads Record Haul.
3. Indian Olympic Association. CWG 2026: India’s Official Medal Tally and Glasgow Games Information.
4. Reuters. Commonwealth Games 2026 and Ahmedabad 2030: Background on Glasgow’s Scaled-Down Format and the Future of the Games.
5. Olympics.com. Glasgow 2026 Sports: Details of the Sports Included and Those Missing from the Programme.
6. The Indian Express. India’s Final Medal Tally: India’s 13 Gold, 17 Silver and 9 Bronze Medals.
7. Press Information Bureau (PIB), Government of India. Gulveer Singh: His Historic 5,000m and 10,000m Achievements.
8. The Indian Express. Why Hockey, Badminton, Wrestling, Cricket and More Are Not at the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
9. Hindustan Times. No Badminton, No Wrestling, No Hockey: Why India’s Top Commonwealth Medal Sports Won’t Feature at CWG 2026.
10. NDTV. India’s Commonwealth Games 2026 Medal Tally Lowest in 24 Years, Yet Among the Best.
11. The Economic Times. Commonwealth Games 2026 Medal Tally: Who Are India’s 39 Medal Winners as Boxing Stars Lead Historic Surge? Full Gold, Silver, Bronze List.

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