For twenty years, India waited for this moment. On Day 4 of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, it finally arrived — not from a sprinter or a wrestler, but from a woman who only picked up the sport at 34, after surviving domestic abuse and deciding her story wasn’t over.
Sharmila Dhankar stepped into the Women’s Shot Put F57 circle and threw 9.81 metres — a season-best mark that won India its first-ever Commonwealth Games gold in para-athletics. Before leaving for Glasgow, she’d said her journey was about more than medals: it was about telling other women that it’s never really over. On Tuesday, she backed that up with history.
She wasn’t alone on the podium. Teammate Shilpa K. Shyla added the bronze with a personal-best 7.26m, after a post-event review overturned a Nigerian athlete’s mark — handing India its first-ever double podium in the discipline.
The medals kept coming. In the high jump, Sarvesh Kushare cleared 2.25m to become the first Indian ever to win a Commonwealth silver in the men’s event, narrowly missing gold on countback to Jamaica’s Romaine Beckford. On the weightlifting platform, 22-year-old Valluri Ajaya Babu set a Games record with a 149kg snatch and took silver in the 79kg category, just 1kg behind Malaysia’s winner. CWG debutant Gyaneshwari Yadav added another silver in the women’s 53kg category, while Bindyarani Devi picked up bronze in the women’s 58kg event.
By the end of the day, India had banked six medals in a single session, pushing its overall Glasgow 2026 tally to 10 — two gold, five silver, and three bronze.
More is coming. Murali Sreeshankar and Lokesh Sathyanathan have both advanced to the men’s long jump final, Asian champion Gulveer Singh chases a maiden Games medal in the 10,000m on Day 5, and Lovlina Borgohain — already guaranteed bronze via a bye — steps into the ring aiming for gold.
For now, though, the story belongs to Sharmila Dhankar, and a drought that finally, after two decades, came to an end.
