Not every close call at the Commonwealth Games 2026 has ended in celebration for India. Several Indian athletes have come agonisingly close to the podium in Glasgow, only to fall just short in the closing stages of their events.
The most heartbreaking near-miss came in the women’s shot put final, where Manpreet Kaur was in medal contention for most of the competition with a series of steadily improving throws, finishing with a best effort of 17.49m. Jamaica’s Lloydricia Cameron produced a big final-round throw to match silver medallist Jessica Oji’s distance and edge Manpreet off the podium on countback, leaving the Indian in fourth place by the smallest of margins.
In the pool, para swimmer Suyash Jadhav came agonisingly close to a medal in the men’s 50m freestyle S7 final, finishing fourth in 31.63 seconds, just 0.3 seconds behind the bronze medal position. It was one of the closest finishes of the Games for any Indian athlete.
Fellow para swimmer Karthik Budigina also finished just outside the medals on more than one occasion, placing fourth in the men’s S13 100m freestyle final with a time of 57.57 seconds, with England’s bronze medallist clocking 56.86 seconds, a gap of under a second. Budigina and teammate Ali Imam also narrowly missed out in the men’s 50m freestyle S13 final later in the Games.
In artistic gymnastics and para powerlifting on the opening day of competition, India also had athletes finish agonisingly close to the podium in the men’s team and individual events, underlining how tight the margins have been across multiple sports at this edition.
India’s swimming team as a whole endured a difficult campaign in this regard, with the entire squad, led by Olympians Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash, finishing the Commonwealth Games 2026 without a medal despite several fourth and fifth-place finishes across the programme, continuing the country’s long wait for a swimming medal since Prasanta Karmakar’s para swimming bronze at Delhi 2010.
These near-misses are a reminder of just how competitive the streamlined Glasgow 2026 field has been, with several Indian athletes leaving Scotland having come within touching distance of the podium, even if the medal itself narrowly slipped away.