Comparing India’s Commonwealth Games 2026 campaign in Glasgow to the country’s showing at Birmingham 2022 requires some context, because the two editions are simply not built the same way. Glasgow 2026 features a far smaller, streamlined 10-sport programme, with nine of the sports contested in Birmingham dropped altogether, including wrestling, badminton, and hockey, three of India’s traditionally strongest medal-winning events.
At Birmingham 2022, India finished fourth overall with 61 medals, comprising 22 gold, 16 silver, and 23 bronze, competing across 16 sports with a squad of around 210 athletes. Of those 61 medals, roughly 30 came from sports that simply do not feature on the Glasgow 2026 programme, meaning a smaller overall tally for India this time around was always the realistic expectation, regardless of how well the current squad performed.
India has sent a noticeably smaller contingent to Glasgow, around 122 to 125 athletes across 13 sports disciplines including para events, compared to the much larger squad in Birmingham. Through the first six days of competition in Glasgow, India’s medal tally stood at 15, comprising gold, silver, and bronze medals spread mainly across weightlifting, para athletics, and para powerlifting, with several more medals already guaranteed through boxing semifinalists.
One clear difference between the two editions is where India’s medals are coming from. In Birmingham, the country’s haul was spread widely across boxing, weightlifting, table tennis, badminton, and wrestling. In Glasgow, weightlifting and para athletics have carried a much larger share of the load, reflecting both the reduced sports programme and a stronger emphasis on India’s growing para sport pipeline.
Mirabai Chanu’s story links both editions directly. Having opened India’s medal account at Birmingham 2022 with weightlifting gold, she has again delivered at Glasgow 2026, becoming the second Indian ever to win three consecutive individual Commonwealth Games titles.
Given the reduced programme, a direct medal-for-medal comparison with 2022 is somewhat misleading. A more useful measure is how India has performed within the sports that do feature at both editions, weightlifting, boxing, athletics, and swimming, where the picture is more encouraging, with weightlifting in particular matching or exceeding its Birmingham medal output through the opening week alone.
With boxing finals and Neeraj Chopra’s javelin campaign still to come, India’s final Glasgow 2026 tally will become clearer over the closing days, but it is already evident that this edition was always going to look different from Birmingham simply because of how differently the Games themselves have been structured.