HEADY YEAR & ASPIRATIONS

For India, 2026 assumes great significance because two important multi-disciplinary events — Asiad and CWG — are scheduled in next 10 months. Indraneel Das tries to understand sports federations’ aspirations and expectations this year...

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In sports parlance, there is no respite. The year 2026 is going be a sports-heavy mind-boggling year that would give fans hardly any time to resuscitate. The year will begin with the Hockey India League (HIL), India Open badminton, T20 Men’s World Cup followed by the ever-popular Indian Premier League until summer. This will be followed by planet’s most-watched and followed sport — football World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico. The Women’s T20 World Cup, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, badminton world championships, the regular dose of football leagues, the F1, tennis Grand Slams...The list goes on (please see our calendar).

It’s a heady year. For India, the year 2026 also assumes significance because of two of the most important multidisciplinary events after the Olympics — Asian and Commonwealth Games. The sports ministry in consultation with the Indian Olympic Association has decided to send full-fledged team to the Asian Games because there are non-Olympic sports where India can win more medals. There are other reasons too. The truncated Commonwealth Games in Glasgow from July 23 to August 2 would have been just another Games, had it not for India hosting it in 2030 at Ahmedabad. There will be just 10 disciplines this time because of lack of budget and also time since Glasgow agreed to host after Victoria withdrew and other nations like Malaysia did not show interest. Of the 10 sports — athletics, swimming, basketball (3x3), netball, boxing, gymnastics, lawn bowls, track cycling, weightlifting, and judo (integrated with para-sports) — India are good in select sports. India dominated in weightlifting and won medals in boxing, lawn bowls, athletics and judo.