India finishes fourth among 74 nations at Commonwealth Games 2026: 39 medals and standout athletes

(Aug 3, 2026) The 2026 Commonwealth Games, which commenced in Glasgow on 23 July, concluded on 2 August. It was a scaled-down edition, held after original host Victoria, Australia withdrew in 2023. Around 3,000 athletes competed across 11 sports, representing 74 nations and territories. India performed well, closing the Games in fourth place on the medal table. This top-four finish is especially remarkable given that the Glasgow 2026 programme excluded traditional, medal-rich Indian strongholds like wrestling, badminton, table tennis, hockey and shooting. For India, it turned into one of the more efficient campaigns in the country’s Commonwealth Games history, built on a historic boxing haul, two long-awaited judo golds, and a hat-trick of weightlifting titles for Mirabai Chanu. At the closing ceremony, the Commonwealth Games flag was formally handed over to Ahmedabad as host of 2030.

The Commonwealth Games themselves date back much further. They began in 1930, with the first edition hosted in Hamilton, Canada, under the name the British Empire Games. The event has been held roughly every four years since, with only the 1942 and 1946 editions cancelled, due to the Second World War. The Glasgow 2026 edition marked the 22nd staging of the Games overall, and India’s 19th appearance since its debut in 1934.

The Indian contingent at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland

Key highlights 

– India sent a contingent of 122 athletes to Glasgow, competing across ten sports.

-The country earned 39 medals (13 Gold, 17 Silver, and 9 Bronze) in total, placing fourth on the overall table.

-Boxing dominance: The boxers were India’s most successful athletes with 10 medals (7 gold, 3 silver), topping the boxing medal table with the most golds by any nation in a single edition.

-Historic weightlifting title: Mirabai Chanu completed a hat-trick of Commonwealth Games golds.

-Judo breakthrough: Asmita Dey and Harsh Singh won India’s first-ever Commonwealth judo golds.

-Athletics milestone: Gulveer Singh became India’s first track athlete to win two individual medals at one Games.

-Record-breaking para triumph: India matched its entire historical para tally in one go, bringing home 7 medals (3 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze), led by Sharmila Dhankar’s phenomenal shot put gold

The Global Indian takes a closer look at some of the athletes behind those numbers in the 2026 CWG.

Unstoppable boxing squad: Seven gold and three silver, the country’s biggest boxing haul yet

No single storyline defined India’s Glasgow campaign more than boxing, where seven fighters, Preeti Pawar, Jaismine Lamboria, Arundhati Choudhary, Priya Ghanghas, Sachin Siwach, Ankush Panghal and Sakshi Chaudhary, all won gold within the same campaign. Three more, Jadumani Singh, Narender Berwal and Olympic medallist Lovlina Borgohain, added silver.

What stands out is less any individual result than the scale of a squad peaking together, a rare occurrence in combat sports where form and draw luck can vary widely fighter to fighter. Borgohain’s presence lent experience to a group otherwise built around fighters still establishing themselves on the international stage. Taken together, the campaign reads less like a collection of individual medals and more like a generational shift in Indian boxing’s depth.

Mirabai Chanu’s hat-trick: Gold in the women’s 48kg for her third straight CWG title

Chosen to lead India out at the opening ceremony, Chanu carried that responsibility into competition and delivered on it. Her path to a third straight Commonwealth gold has not been a straight line. She has weighed medical setbacks and the pressure of defending a title twice over, first at Gold Coast in 2018 and again at Birmingham in 2022, all while continuing to compete at the Olympic level in between. Weightlifting careers rarely stretch across three Commonwealth cycles without interruption, and Chanu’s has, largely on the strength of consistent discipline in training and a temperament that seems to steady rather than fray under expectation.

In Glasgow, she added an Olympic silver medallist’s composure to a field that has grown more competitive with each edition. Her win became the platform the rest of the Indian contingent built on.

Asmita Dey and Harsh Singh: Gold medals that gave India its first Commonwealth judo titles

Indian judo had gone through every previous Commonwealth Games without a gold medal, a gap that made every near-miss over the years feel heavier. Asmita Dey closed that gap with a golden point win over Canada’s Heidi Quach, a finish tight enough to capture how narrow the margins are at this level. Minutes later, Harsh Singh followed with a commanding win of his own, turning what could have been a solitary breakthrough into a shared one.

For a sport that has often operated outside the spotlight given India’s traditional strengths in boxing and wrestling, the two wins mark a shift worth watching beyond this single Games. Teammate Yamini Mourya’s silver on the same day added further weight to a judo campaign that, medal for medal, was modest, but historically was the most significant the country has had.

Para athletics Gold Medallists: Three golds that ended a 20-year medal drought

India’s para athletics programme carried one of the quieter but more significant storylines of the Games, returning with three golds and ending a 20-year wait for a medal in the discipline. Dilip Gavit’s Games record run in the men’s 100m T47 was backed by teammate Mohammed Basil M’s silver, while Sharmila Dhankar and Soman Rana each won gold in their respective shot put F57 categories, with Shubham Juyal adding a further silver behind Rana.

Drawn from an 11-member contingent, these results reflect years of a smaller, less-resourced programme finally converting depth into podiums across a single Games. For a discipline that had gone without a medal since roughly the mid-2000s, three golds in one edition mark less an incremental step than a genuine turning point.

Gulveer Singh: Silver in the 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m, India’s first athletics double

For years, Indian distance running at the Commonwealth Games has largely belonged to two names, Milkha Singh and Avinash Sable. Gulveer Singh’s route to becoming the third was built on the unglamorous, incremental work of a track athlete competing in events where India has historically struggled to be competitive on the global circuit. He arrived in Glasgow having earned an exemption from domestic trials, a mark of an athlete already trusted at the top of his discipline, and left having won two medals in a single Games, a first for an Indian athlete in athletics. 

The 10,000m and 5,000m are gruelling, tactical races that reward years of patient conditioning rather than a single standout season. Gulveer’s double podium finish is as much a story about persistence in an unforgiving event as it is about a single fortnight in Scotland.

Neeraj Chopra and Yashvir Singh: Earn silver and bronze for India in javelin 

Chopra’s story in Glasgow was less about a new peak and more about staying present at the top for a third consecutive Commonwealth Games, having won gold in 2018 and missed 2022 through injury. Returning to the podium after that enforced absence carries its own weight, given how easily a long layoff can unsettle an athlete used to competing at the sharpest edge of his event. His silver throw was backed by training partner and teammate Yash Vir Singh, whose personal-best effort for bronze turned Chopra’s individual result into a shared Indian moment on the podium.

Chopra continues to lead a new generation of Indian javelin throwers rather than simply compete alongside them, and Glasgow reinforced that his presence in a final still shapes how the rest of the field approaches the event. While in his Commonwealth Games debut, the 24-year-old athlete Yash Vir Singh pulled off a spectacular clutch performance on by launching a massive personal best throw of 85.41 metres on his sixth and final attempt.

Praveen Chithravel and Selva Prabhu Thirumaran: Silver and bronze in triple jump, second consecutive twin-medal finish

For the second consecutive Commonwealth Games, India’s triple jump produced a double podium finish, this time through Praveen Chithravel’s silver and Selva Prabhu Thirumaran’s bronze. Chithravel, the national record holder in the event, spent 2025 rebuilding form through silver medals at the Asian Athletics Championships and the FISU World University Games, results that quietly set up his Glasgow performance rather than announcing it in advance.

That two Indian jumpers have now gone one-two, or close to it, at back-to-back editions suggests a pipeline rather than a single standout talent, which is arguably the more durable story for a discipline that has often relied on isolated breakthroughs rather than sustained depth.

• View India’s complete medal history, year-wise & sport-wise records, and Glasgow 2026 updates here

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