Only one day is left for Commonwealth Games 2018 at Gold Coast, Australia to begin. India has sent a strong contingent of 225-players. The CWG will be held from April 4 to April 15. In individual disciplines, Athletics and Shooting has the maximum representation with 31 and 27 participants respectively. The contingent also includes 58 coaches, 17 doctors and physiotherapists, seven managers and 22 other officials.
For those who don’t know, here take a look at Indian’s at Commonwealth Games over the years:
India has participated in the fourteen of the eighteen previous Commonwealth Games. India has also hosted Commonwealth in 2010, which till date, witnessed India’s most successful CWG with athletes winning 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals.
In 2014, India’s campaign ended with a total of 64 medals (15 Golds, 30 Silvers, 19 Bronze). Some must be wondering or wanted to know, who was the person to win a first-ever Commonwealth medal. Well, it was Rashid Anwar, who won a bronze in Welterweight category of Wrestling. Meanwhile, India stands on No 4 in all-time Commonwealth Games medal table with 155 gold, 155 silver and 128 bronze medals in 16 total Commonwealth Games.
2014 was a year of creating records for number of players such as, Discus throw player Vikas Gowda, who won the Gold medal, the first for India in men’s athletics in 56 years. Squash duo Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa won first-ever gold for India at Commonwealth India in the category. Also, men’s badminton ace Parupalli Kashyap won gold in the singles event and became the first Indian male in 32 years to win a gold. Then comes the young Dipa Karmakar. Dipa was the first Indian female gymnast to win a medal at gymnastics at an international level. In total, in 2014, Indian contingent won 64 medals in 2014.
All this was started by Mr ‘Flying Sikh’, well the guess is right, Milkha Singh, one of India’s greatest athletes. Milkha Singh took to track at the 1958 Commonwealth games in Cardiff and created a history thereby winning the first-ever gold for the country. In 1954, India first took part in CWG after gaining Independence. They had won a bronze at 1934 British Empire Games from which the now Commonwealth Games came into being. In these many decades, India has now become a superpower at Commonwealth Games from making entry into sports such as shooting, weightlifting and wrestling.
Cut to 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, star Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra won Gold in 10m Air Rifle pairs event and repeated the same feat twice in 2006 at Melbourne and in 2010 at Delhi. And in 2014 at Glasgow, Abhinav Bindra again won Gold in the Men’s 10m air rifle singles event.
In 2010, one of famous Phogat sister, the elder Geeta became the first female wrestler to win first ever gold medal in wrestling at Commonwealth. Geeta then beat Emily Bensted from Australia in the gold medal match with 1-0, 7-0.
