The 2026 Commonwealth Games (CWG) will take place in Glasgow from July 23 with 125 athletes from India looking to win big medals at a quadrennial multi-sport event.
The CWG is one of the platforms where Indian stars put in top performances and there is much to look forward to for Indian sports fans as the likes of Neeraj Chopra, Mirabai Chanu and Co take the field. Indeed, India are the next hosts of the event, with the 2030 CWG set to be held in Ahmedabad.
However, this edition is likely not going to be as good for Indian sport as the past few ones. There are going to be fewer medals, and many top names will be missing. There will be no PV Sindhu or Manu Bhaker or, Harmanpreet Singh or Aman Sehrawat to look forward to.
The Glasgow CWG is going to be a severely truncated one with only ten sports on the roster, cutting down from 19 sports in the 2022 Birmingham edition.
The ten sports in Glasgow are athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, 3x3 basketball, lawns bowls, netball, artistic gymnastics, judo and boxing. Six of these sports will simultaneously running para events as well -- athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, lawn bowls and basketball.
The sports which were removed are badminton, cricket, hockey, squash, table tennis, triathlon, wrestling, beach volleyball and rugby sevens.
The second list features some of India's core, Olympic medal winning sports like badminton, hockey and wrestling. With these out, it's natural to expect that India's medal tally will be affected.
India had finished fourth in Birmingham with 61 medals, and 30 of those had events that will not feature in Glasgow. That's nearly half of the haul. Similarly, 47% of the entire contingent from 2022 was part of now removed sports.
So, why are the major sports not there?
The short answer is economics.
First, some background. The 2026 CWG was initially supposed to be held in Australia. But in 2023 -- just three years before the event -- the state of Victoria withdrew citing escalating costs. Getting an alternate host at such short notice was difficult till the Scottish city stepped in. However, they said that the limited time of just three years was not enough to plan and put up a full-scale event. Hence, this new, lean version.
Hosting CWG is cost-intensive with 74 Commonwealth nations and territories participating and many former hosts don't see the much return of investment on this, which explains the reluctance to take over from Australia.
Glasgow had hosted the event in 2014 and had most of the infrastructure in place for another edition. The 2026 edition will take place in existing four venues within a small radius and athletes and staff will be accommodated in existing hotels instead of a new CWG village being built.
How does this affect India's medal chances?
Quite adversely.
In 2022, India sent 210 athletes across 16 sports and won 61 medals. Of those, 30 were from sports that won't be in 2026 -- badminton (6), cricket (1), hockey (2), squash (2), table tennis (7) and wrestling (12).
Additionally, from the ten sports that do feature, India's performances have been a mixed bag since. Boxing (7), judo (3) and weightlifting (10) have taken quite the downturn, with disappointing performances at the 2024 Olympics from the likes of Mirabai, Lovlina Borgohain and Nikhat Zareen.
The 2022 CWG was already without the heavyweight sport of shooting and archery. Now this further reduces medal guarantees for India.
That there is an Asian Games starting in September means it won't be a huge wait for multi-sport event heroics. But it will surely take a toll on sports like table tennis and wrestling, where India were dominant in a smaller field.
Commonwealth Games 2026 axes nine sports: What does this mean for India?
So, who are India's medal hopes from the 10 sports?
There are many top stars still to watch, fret not. (Hint: There could be a Neeraj Chopra vs Arshad Nadeem rematch).
We will have the medal prospects and more on our pages at ESPN India. Till then, you can have a look at the full list of India's contingent going to Glasgow here.