The 2026 Commonwealth Games get underway in Glasgow on Thursday, with around 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories competing across 10 sports. A total of 215 gold medals will be up for grabs during the Games.
India will be making its 19th appearance at the Commonwealth Games, having first competed in 1934. This year, a 124-member Indian contingent will take part across eight able-bodied sports and five para-sports.
Glasgow stepped in only after Australia’s Victoria state withdrew from hosting because of spiralling costs, forcing organisers to rethink the event.
The result is a significantly scaled-back Games featuring just 10 sports – the fewest since the 1994 edition – spread across four venues: the Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow Arena, Scotstoun Stadium, and Tollcross International Swimming Centre.
India’s campaign begins with lawn bowls, the sport that produced one of the country’s most memorable moments at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where they returned with 61 medals.
Four years ago, the Indian women’s fours team of Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey scripted history by defeating South Africa to win the gold medal. It was India’s first-ever Commonwealth Games medal in lawn bowls, a sport that has featured in every edition of the Games since 1930, except in 1966.
India also enjoyed success in the men’s competition, with Sunil Bahadur, Chandan Singh, Navneet Singh and Dinesh Kumar winning the silver medal in the men’s fours event. The men’s pairs team also narrowly missed out on a podium finish.
The Indian lawn bowls squad will now look to build on that success when competition begins in Glasgow. The opening ceremony will be held at the OVO Hydro, one of Glasgow’s most iconic indoor arenas, from 10:30 PM IST.