India fourth at Glasgow 2026 with 39 medals
India finished fourth at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, which concluded on August 2, winning 39 medals — 13 gold, 17 silver and nine bronze. The placing came despite the absence of several disciplines that have historically supplied a large share of India’s Commonwealth medals.
India’s medal total at the Commonwealth Games has risen from a single podium in 1934 to 603 across the editions it has participated in. Shooting, wrestling and weightlifting alone account for 390 of those 603 medals, while boxing, badminton and table tennis have contributed another 113.
Glasgow staged a pared-down programme of 10 sports after the Commonwealth Games movement was forced to find a replacement host following Victoria’s withdrawal; the 2026 programme included athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, 3x3 basketball, lawn bowls, netball, artistic gymnastics, judo and boxing, alongside para events. Notably, shooting, wrestling, badminton, table tennis and hockey were absent from the Glasgow programme.
India’s Commonwealth journey began in London in 1934 when wrestler Rashid Anwar won the country’s first medal, a bronze in the 74kg freestyle, and India finished 12th. India missed the 1930, 1950, 1962 and 1986 editions, won no medals in 1938 and was unranked in 1954. The nation’s first gold medals came in 1958 when Milkha Singh won the 440-yard race and Lila Ram triumphed in the 100kg wrestling category, while Lachmi Kant Pandey won a silver.
Medal totals climbed gradually through the late 20th century: 10 medals in 1966, 12 in 1970 and 15 in 1974, with India finishing sixth on each occasion; by 1990 the tally had risen to 32 medals and fifth place. Women won their first Commonwealth medal in 1978 when Ami Ghia and Kanwal Thakar Singh took bronze in the women’s doubles at Edmonton, with two women’s medals in 1994 and three in 1998. India crossed the 50-medal mark for the first time in 2002 with 69 medals and a fourth-place finish, recorded 50 medals and fourth again in 2006, and produced its highest total at Delhi 2010 with 101 medals — 64 by men, 36 by women and one in a mixed event — finishing second.
India’s share of all Commonwealth medals has varied over time: 0.5% in 1934, first crossing 5% in 1990 when India won 32 of the 638 medals awarded, rising to 7.7% in 2002 and 6.7% in 2006. At Delhi 2010 India won 101 of 828 medals, accounting for 12.2% of the total; the share remained above 7% in 2014 and 2018 (7.8% and 7.9%) before falling to 7% in Birmingham 2022. In Glasgow, India won 39 of the 671 medals awarded, accounting for 5.8%, its lowest medal haul since 1958 when it won three medals.
Australia finished first in Glasgow, returning to the top of the Commonwealth medal table after England led the standings at Birmingham in 2022. Australia has accumulated 2,773 Commonwealth medals compared with India’s 603 while having a population of roughly 28 million against India’s 1.46 billion; Canada has won 1,709 medals with a population of about 41.7 million and New Zealand 743 medals with 5.3 million people. The piece does not present a medals-per-capita ranking but notes differences in sporting systems, citing Australia’s nation-wide “Little Athletics” as an initial introduction to athletics, experienced coaches not restricted by bureaucratic central bodies, a tendency not to push athletes to perform young and many athletes gaining experience in American colleges before competing officially.
The smaller programme in Glasgow and the absence of several sports in which India has historically performed strongly make direct comparisons with earlier editions difficult. With inputs from Sachin Swaraj who is interning with The Hindu’s Data Team. Gauri Singavarapu is also an intern with the team.