The 2026 edition of the Commonwealth Games will be without a host of sports in which India are medal favourites, with only 10 sports taking place across four venues at the Glasgow edition, down from 19 sports that were featured in Birmingham 2022.
India's athletes (and medal tally) are likely to be greatly affected - this is what we can expect:
What are the sports for CWG 2026?
Athletics, Swimming, Track cycling, Weightlifting, 3x3 Basketball, Lawns bowls, Netball, Artistic Gymnastics, Judo and Boxing are the ten sports included in the programme for the Glasgow Games.
Badminton, Cricket, Hockey, Squash, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Wrestling, Beach Volleyball and Rugby Sevens are the nine events from Birmingham that were cut for the Glashow edition - although India didn't take part in the latter two.
How will this affect India's athletes?
Of the 210 Indian athletes that took part in Birmingham, 98 took part in sports that have now been axed in CWG 2026. That's about 47% of the entire contingent from 2022, and we can expect India to send a greatly reduced squad in 2026.
The lack of a CWG event for these sports is slightly tempered by the Asian Games also taking place in 2026 (Aichi-Nagoya, Japan) ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The athletes of Badminton, Hockey, Squash, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Wrestling will feature in the Asiad, while India's cricketers will have to wait until the Olympics.
However, with the CWG field often an easier one that that of the Asian Games and the Olympics, an athlete's chance at earning a medal for India might be lost entirely - despite great strides made at the Asiad and Olympic level by Indian athletes recently.
A sport like Table Tennis will be particularly hit hard, since India's stars face a very difficult field at the Asiad and Olympics and usually only earn CWG medals. For context, Indian TT legend Achanta Sharath Kamal has thirteen medals at the Commonwealth Games, but only two Asiad medals. The lack of TT at CWG 26 means India's stars will have to wait until 2030, by which time rising young stars like Sreeja Akula may have passed their peak.
The wait until 2030 could also affect India's aging stars - the likes of PV Sindhu and Bajrang Punia will have to focus on the Asiad for perhaps their last realistic shot at a medal.
India's wrestlers will also be affected by a lack of CWG - effectively a guaranteed medal for an athlete. All twelve of India's wrestlers at Birmingham came back with medals, while only six of eighteen earned medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games - Aman Sehrawat was India's lone wrestling medallist in Paris from the six-member wrestling contingent.
What will be the financial impact on the athletes?
A Commonwealth Games medal is often the pathway to cash awards and government jobs - all important to an athlete's career prospects and long-term financial security. An eight year wait, or longer (given the tenuous future of the Commonwealth Games) could severely impact an Indian athlete's future in their respective sports - coupled with placing greater pressure on the Asian Games / Olympics as their only chances for a medal.
Even for regular medal-winners at the Asiad level, rewards for a CWG medal are equal to that of an Asian Games medal (the sports ministry awards 30 lakh for gold, 20 lakh for silver, 10 lakh from bronze), so earnings will be effectively halved (although state cash rewards differ).
With the Games often working as a proving ground for emerging stars, that early financial fillip can be a platform to improve themselves and rise to the Asiad and Olympic level later. It can also place them in the national spotlight, opening doors for sponsorship - consider that Neeraj Chopra announced himself to the Indian sporting fraternity with gold in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
How will this affect India's medal tally?
India sent 210 athletes to the 2022 Birmingham Games across 16 sports, winning 61 medals in the process. 30 of those medals were from sports that won't be present at the Glasgow Games in 2026. Badminton contributed 6 of those medals, with Cricket (1), Hockey (2), Squash (2), Table Tennis (7), Wrestling (12) also now absent from the tally.
In addition, from the ten sports that do feature, India's performances in sports like Boxing (7 medals in CWG 22), Judo (3 medals in CWG 22) and Weightlifting (10 medals in CWG 22) has taken quite the downturn, with disappointing performances at the Olympics.
Four of India's CWG boxing medallists did not even qualify for Paris 2024, nor did two Judo medallists, while Mirabai Chanu was the sole weightlifter for India at the Olympics, with nine CWG medallists not qualifying for Paris. Thus, from the 20 medals these sports contributed in 2022, we can expect that number to be halved, or worse.
However, India's athletics contingent has been growing from strength to strength and coupled with the nation's lawn-bowls champions, we could see a tally that may reach atleast a third of the 61 earned at CWG 22.
So, which of India's big names will miss out?
Olympic medal winners like PV Sindhu, Bajrang Punia and the Indian men's hockey team are the obvious absences.
There are emerging stars who will miss out, like Anahat Singh, who'd represented India in Birmingham aged 14. However, with two Asiad bronze medals under her belt, she does have the 2026 Asian Games to look forward to. The Commonwealth Games would also have seen India's junior talents in hockey been given a chance, as the event was scheduled close to the FIH World Cup, which would have seen India's senior team feature.
India's emerging wrestling talents like Aman Sehrawat, Antim Panghal, Reetika Hooda and Nisha Dahiya would have been medal certainties at the CWG, but for some of them the wait for a medal at a major multi-sports event will continue.
Table Tennis has witnessed a rise in India with recent path-breaking performances at the Olympics, Asiad and the Asian Championships, but a chance for a big medal haul at CWG from the likes of Manika Batra, Ayhika Mukherjee, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Sreeja Akula, Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, Harmeet Desai etc. has disappeared. For triathletes like Pragnya Mohan, a CWG medal would be a tall ask, but any instance of being in the national spotlight is valuable.
Why were the number of sports events reduced?
CWG 2026 was initially set to be hosted by the state of Victoria in Australia, before rising costs meant they pulled out. The Commonwealth Games Federation scrambled to find a replacement host, with Glasgow, Scotland eventually confirmed as hosts. However, in a bid to keep costs low, the Games will take place in existing venues within a small radius, with athletes and staff accommodated in existing hotels instead of a new CWG village. Thus, with only four venues in the fray, many sports were left out due to a lack of facilities.