Key Highlights
- India has won 10 medals at Commonwealth Games 2026 so far (2 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze), sitting 8th on the table.
- Shooting alone gave India 30 medals at Delhi 2010, close to a third of the country's entire medal count that year.
- Shooting has not featured at the Commonwealth Games since Gold Coast 2018, meaning this is the second edition in a row without it.
- Shooting accounts for 135 of India's all time tally of 564 Commonwealth Games medals, making it the single biggest contributor across Games history.
- Weightlifting and para-athletics have driven most of India's medal count at Glasgow 2026 so far, showing how much the tally now depends on fewer sports.
In April 2018, an army man named Jitu Rai stood at the range in Gold Coast, Australia, and shot a Games record score to win India gold in the 10m air pistol event. It was his second Commonwealth Games gold, after Glasgow 2014. At the time, nobody watching had any reason to think that medal would be his last chance at this stage. It was.
Shooting has not featured at the Commonwealth Games since that day. Rai went on to retire from the sport in 2024, closing a career that included two Commonwealth Games golds, without ever getting the chance to defend either of them on this stage again. Not because his form dropped. Not because a younger shooter replaced him. Simply because the sport itself was removed from the program before he got another shot.
His story is not an isolated case. It is the story of an entire sport that quietly disappeared from India's biggest medal hunting ground, and almost nobody covering Commonwealth Games 2026 has stopped to explain why.
Right now, at Glasgow 2026, India sits 8th on the medal table with 10 medals, including 2 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze. Most reports stop right there, comparing this number to past editions and drawing quick conclusions about how India is performing. But that comparison misses something basic. The competition itself has changed.
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The Sport That Quietly Built India's Commonwealth Games Legacy
Ask any Indian sports fan what "CWG" and "shooting" have in common, and most won't have an answer ready. That gap in memory is strange, because for two decades shooting quietly did more heavy lifting for India's Commonwealth Games campaign than almost any other sport.
Go back to Delhi 2010. India delivered its best Commonwealth Games performance ever that year, 101 medals in total, and shooters alone carried a third of that tally on their own.
The pattern held for three editions straight:
- Delhi 2010 — 30 medals in shooting alone (14 gold, 11 silver, 5 bronze), out of India's all time high of 101.
- Glasgow 2014 — 17 medals in shooting, out of a total of 64.
- Gold Coast 2018 — 16 medals in shooting, including 7 gold, out of a total of 66.
Source: Commonwealth Games Federation
Did You Know?
- Manu Bhaker won her first Commonwealth Games gold at just 16, setting a Games record of 240.9 points, years before she became a household name at the Paris Olympics.
- Jitu Rai won back to back Commonwealth Games golds in 2014 and 2018, then retired in 2024 without ever getting another chance to defend either title, because shooting hasn't returned to the program since 2018.
- Shooting has produced 135 of India's all time Commonwealth Games medal haul of 564, making it India's single most successful sport at this event, even though it hasn't featured since 2018.
Source: Wikipedia, Olympics.com
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What Actually Happened To Shooting At The Commonwealth Games
Shooting was dropped from the Commonwealth Games program after Gold Coast 2018. It did not return for Birmingham 2022, and it is absent again at Glasgow 2026. This is a decision made by host organizing committees, who choose the sports list for each edition based on their own venues, budgets and priorities.
It has nothing to do with how Indian shooters are performing internationally. In fact:
- Indian shooters continue to win medals regularly at the Olympics.
- They remain competitive at the Asian Games.
- They still deliver podium finishes at World Championships.
The sport simply is not on the Commonwealth Games 2026 program this time, and that single fact changes how India's medal count should be read.
| Edition | Shooting On Program | Top Medal Contributing Sport | India's Total Medals | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi 2010 | Yes | Shooting(30 medals) | 101 | 2nd |
| Glasgow 2014 | Yes | Shooting(17 medals) | 64 | 5th |
| Gold Coast 2018 | Yes | Shooting(16 medals) | 66 | 3rd |
| Birmingham 2022 | No | Wrestling(12 medals) | 61 | 4th |
| Glasgow 2026 | No | Weightlifting & para-athletics | 10(so far) | 8th (so far) |
Source: ESPN, Olympics.com, Daily Jagran
The table tells its own story. When India won 61 medals at Birmingham 2022, that tally was already built without a single shooting medal in the mix, and it still placed India fourth overall. Wrestling stepped in that year, delivering a record 12 medals and becoming the new top contributor. At Glasgow 2026, with shooting absent again, India's early medal count has leaned heavily on weightlifting, led by Mirabai Chanu, Rishikanta Singh and Raja Muthupandi, alongside a strong showing in para-athletics.
None of this means India is performing worse. It means the shape of India's medal chances has shifted because the competition's sport list has shifted. Comparing 2026 numbers directly against 2010 or 2014 numbers, without accounting for this, gives a misleading picture.
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Three Things You Won't Read Elsewhere
Most coverage of Commonwealth Games 2026 focuses on daily medal updates and athlete profiles, which is useful but incomplete. A few things are being missed almost entirely.
First, the concentration risk in India's current medal count is rarely pointed out. When more than half of a country's medals come from one or two sports, as is the case with weightlifting and para-athletics at Glasgow 2026 so far, that is still a fragile position. A single injury, disqualification or below par performance in either of those areas can swing India's entire ranking. Diversified sports like shooting used to spread that risk across many more athletes and events.
Second, the para sport angle deserves more attention than it is getting. Jhandu Kumar's bronze in para powerlifting, India's first medal of these Games, is being treated as a footnote in most reports. But para sport integration at the Commonwealth Games is a relatively recent development, and India's growing presence in these events is a genuine story on its own, separate from the traditional medal race.
Third, Shooting alone accounts for 135 of India's all-time Commonwealth Games tally of 564 medals, close to a quarter of everything India has ever won at this event. Almost no outlet has laid out this sport by sport contribution, and without it, readers have no way to judge whether a low medal count in any single edition reflects a real dip in performance or simply reflects which sports happened to be on the program that year. That single number tells you more about India's real Commonwealth Games identity than any single edition's medal count ever will.
Why It Matters For India's Sporting Future
This is not just a one edition story. It changes three things at once.
India can't lean on shooting anymore
For years, shooting was India's safety net. Whatever other sports did or didn't deliver, shooting quietly filled the gap. That safety net is gone now, and if it stays gone, the shift has to happen elsewhere.
- More investment needs to move toward sports guaranteed a spot every single edition.
- Athletics, boxing and weightlifting become the new backbone, not the backup.
- Federations that used to ride on shooting's success can no longer count on it.
Every medal tally you read from now on needs a second look
Here's the uncomfortable truth. A host city picks the sports list, and that one decision can quietly make India look stronger or weaker than it actually is, with zero connection to how Indian athletes actually performed.
So the next time a medal table gets shared, the real question isn't "how many did India win." It's "what sports were even on offer this time."
For the shooters themselves, this is personal
Somewhere, there is a shooter who trained for four years with the Commonwealth Games as one of their targets. That stage is gone now, not because they lost form, but because a scheduling decision closed the door before they even got to compete.
That is not a stat. That is a career opportunity, quietly taken away.
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What This Means Going Forward
India's contingent at Glasgow 2026 includes 122 athletes across eight able bodied sports and five integrated para disciplines. Medal events in athletics, boxing, judo, swimming and artistic gymnastics are still to come, and these are sports where India has strong recent form. Neeraj Chopra headlines a 32 member athletics squad. He remains a serious contender in javelin throw.
The real story of India's Commonwealth Games 2026 performance will only be clear once the Games conclude and the final medal list is measured against a fair comparison, one that accounts for which sports were actually available this time. Until then, judging India purely by where it sits on the table each day tells only part of the story.
Editorial View
At News4Bharat, we think the daily medal count conversation around Commonwealth Games 2026 is asking the wrong question.
The real story is not whether India is winning enough medals. It is whether the Commonwealth Games itself still tests Indian sport the way it used to. Shooting built India's reputation at this event for two decades, and its removal was a decision India had no control over.
That distinction matters, and it deserves more space in the coverage than a passing mention. Going forward, we will be tracking two things closely.
