In a big blow to India’s possibilities of successful medals on the Commonwealth Video games, important sports activities like hockey, badminton, wrestling, cricket, and capturing is not going to be featured within the 2026 version hosted by Glasgow. The host metropolis revealed a revised record of 10 disciplines geared toward retaining the occasion budget-friendly.
To additional streamline prices and logistics, desk tennis, squash, and triathlon may even be excluded, as the whole occasion will happen throughout simply 4 venues. The general variety of occasions will lower by 9 in comparison with the 2022 Birmingham version.
Scheduled from July 23 to August 2, it will mark Glasgow’s return as host after 12 years. The sports activities program will embrace Athletics and Para Athletics (Monitor & Area), Swimming and Para Swimming, Creative Gymnastics, Monitor Biking and Para Monitor Biking, Netball, Weightlifting and Para Powerlifting, Boxing, Judo, Bowls and Para Bowls, in addition to 3×3 Basketball and 3×3 Wheelchair Basketball, the Commonwealth Video games Federation introduced.
The Video games will make the most of 4 venues: Scotstoun Stadium, Tollcross Worldwide Swimming Centre, Emirates Area (which homes the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome), and the Scottish Occasion Campus (SEC). Athletes and their help employees will keep in accommodations close by.
This diminished roster considerably hampers India’s medal prospects, particularly since a lot of its previous victories got here within the omitted sports activities. Capturing was anticipated to stay absent after its omission from the Birmingham Video games 4 years in the past, primarily resulting from logistical points.
The CGF highlighted that “Glasgow 2026 will function a 10-sport programme concentrated throughout 4 venues inside an eight-mile hall.” This choice dominated out capturing, contemplating the Barry Buddon centre in Dundee—used throughout the 2014 Video games—is over 100km from Glasgow. Archery has additionally been overlooked, having final appeared within the 2010 Delhi Video games.
Key venues like Glasgow Inexperienced and the Scottish Exhibition and Convention Centre, which hosted hockey and wrestling in 2014, are now not included. The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, which hosted badminton at the moment, will solely be used for biking this version.
Furthermore, hockey’s exclusion might be influenced by its scheduling, being near the World Cup set for August 15 to 30 in Wavre, Belgium, and Amstelveen, Netherlands. Initially, the Australian state of Victoria was to host the 2026 Video games however withdrew final yr resulting from escalating prices, main Scotland to step in.
The dearth of hockey represents a big setback for India, whose males’s workforce has a historical past of three silver and two bronze medals, whereas the ladies’s workforce has additionally excelled, securing three medals, together with a historic gold in 2002.
India has received a powerful 31 badminton medals—10 gold, eight silver, and 13 bronze—and was set to enter the 2026 version as defending champions in males’s and ladies’s singles and males’s doubles. In capturing, India boasts a exceptional 135 medals, together with 63 golds, 44 silvers, and 28 bronzes, whereas wrestling has delivered 114 medals (49 gold, 39 silver, and 26 bronze).
After its reintroduction in 2022, the Indian girls’s cricket workforce secured a silver medal. Para-athletes will stay an integral a part of the Video games, with six Para sports activities included within the occasion program for 2026.
The CGF famous that the Video games would carry over £100 million in “inward funding into town” and add an estimated £150 million in financial worth to the area. The group emphasised that this might be achievable by way of a mannequin designed to keep away from public funding for the Video games’ supply.
“The 2026 Video games will function a bridge to the long run Commonwealth Video games—an thrilling first step in the direction of reshaping the Video games right into a collaborative, versatile, and sustainable mannequin, aiming to attenuate prices, reduce environmental impression, and improve social results,” acknowledged CGF CEO Katie Sadleir in a press launch.