India’s Commonwealth Games campaign has traditionally been built on the shoulders of a handful of sports. Wrestling dominated the medal charts for over a decade, shooting routinely delivered double-digit podium finishes whenever it featured, while badminton and table tennis emerged as reliable contributors in recent editions.

Glasgow 2026, however, has changed that equation before a single medal has been awarded.

Faced with financial constraints after taking over as the replacement host, Glasgow has reduced the Games programme to just 10 sports. In the process, wrestling, badminton, table tennis, hockey and cricket — all of which contributed significantly to India’s 61-medal haul at Birmingham 2022 — have been dropped.

Collectively, those sports accounted for 28 medals, nearly 46 per cent of India’s total, leaving a sizeable gap that cannot be filled by one discipline alone.

Instead, India’s success will now depend on how effectively the remaining sports step up. Athletics has emerged as the country’s biggest medal hope, while weightlifting and boxing are expected to continue their long tradition of Commonwealth success. Judo and swimming may not produce double-digit returns, but even a handful of medals from those disciplines could prove decisive in India’s final standing.

In this article, we have listed five sports that could possibly yield the most medals for the Indian contingent at the 11-day multisport event. Take a look.

Athletics: Finally ready to lead India’s campaign

If there is one sport capable of replacing the medals lost through the programme changes, it is athletics.

Historically, Indian athletics has produced iconic champions but rarely enough depth to rival wrestling or shooting as the country’s biggest source of medals. That has changed dramatically over the past Olympic cycle.

The resurgence began with Neeraj Chopra’s Olympic gold in Tokyo and has since evolved into something much bigger. India now has medal contenders spread across multiple disciplines rather than relying on one superstar. Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar has returned to world-class form after injury, Gulveer Singh has rewritten the national record books in both the 5,000m and 10,000m, while Parul Chaudhary has established herself among Asia’s leading distance runners. Triple jumper Praveen Chithravel, decathlete Tejaswin Shankar and shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor further underline the squad’s remarkable depth.

The transformation was evident at Birmingham 2022. Despite Chopra missing the Games through injury, India still collected eight athletics medals — its best overseas Commonwealth Games performance. That result, coupled with strong displays at the Asian Games, World Championships and Asian Athletics Championships over the past three years, suggests Indian athletics is no longer dependent on isolated brilliance.

For the first time, India enters a Commonwealth Games with genuine medal prospects across throws, jumps, distance running and combined events. That breadth makes athletics the country’s strongest candidate to emerge as its biggest medal-producing sport in Glasgow.

Weightlifting: India’s safest Commonwealth investment

Few sports have rewarded India as consistently at the Commonwealth Games as weightlifting.

Unlike athletics, where medals are spread across dozens of events, weightlifting offers fewer opportunities but a significantly higher conversion rate. Indian lifters have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to peak at Commonwealth competitions, making the sport one of the country’s most dependable medal contributors.

The squad is once again spearheaded by Olympic silver medallist Mirabai Chanu, who returns after overcoming injury and remains one of India’s strongest gold medal hopes. Bindyarani Devi has developed into one of the continent’s most consistent lifters and enters Glasgow as a genuine title contender, while Harjinder Kaur and Gyaneshwari Yadav provide additional podium opportunities across multiple weight categories.

The Commonwealth field also tends to be less competitive than the Olympics or World Championships, allowing Indian lifters to maximise their medal potential. That combination of experience, proven pedigree and favourable competition makes weightlifting India’s safest investment once again.

Boxing: Experience meets a fearless new generation

If weightlifting is India’s safest medal sport, boxing is arguably its most unpredictable.

One difficult draw or an off day can end a medal campaign. Yet, despite that uncertainty, Indian boxing has consistently delivered on the Commonwealth stage through a blend of experienced campaigners and emerging talent.

Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain remains India’s standout prospect and one of the favourites in her weight category. Alongside her, youth world champion Sachin Siwach has made a seamless transition to the senior circuit, while Preeti Pawar and Jaismine Lamboria have established themselves as regular podium contenders in international competitions.

Judo: Small numbers, significant opportunity

Judo is unlikely to dominate India’s medal tally, but its importance has grown considerably following the reduction in the Commonwealth Games programme.

With fewer sports available, every medal carries greater significance. That places added emphasis on disciplines in which India has realistic podium hopes, even if the contingent is relatively small.

Heavyweight judoka Tulika Maan has consistently challenged the best athletes in Asia and enters Glasgow as India’s strongest medal prospect in the sport. Harsh Tokas has also made steady progress over the past two seasons and possesses the ability to challenge for a podium finish in the men’s competition.

Unlike the Olympics, where Japanese, French and Georgian judokas dominate, the Commonwealth field is comparatively open. That creates opportunities for athletes such as Tulika and Tokas to convert years of continental success into Commonwealth medals.

Swimming: A chance to rewrite history

Swimming has rarely featured prominently in India’s Commonwealth Games success story.

Unlike athletics or weightlifting, India has never viewed the pool as a major source of medals. Glasgow, however, offers a realistic opportunity to change that perception.

Backstroke specialist Srihari Nataraj has spent the past few years consistently lowering national records while competing against some of the world’s best swimmers. Distance freestyle swimmer Aryan Nehra has also narrowed the gap with leading Commonwealth competitors through a series of impressive performances over the past two seasons.

A medal remains a difficult target, given the strength of swimmers from Australia, England and Canada, but India’s leading swimmers are now closer to Commonwealth standards than any previous generation. Even one podium finish would represent a landmark achievement and provide a significant boost to India’s overall medal tally.

How the biggest contenders of 2026 have fared in the last four editions

The five sports expected to spearhead India’s challenge in Glasgow have collectively accounted for a significant share of the country’s Commonwealth Games success over the past four editions. Athletics, weightlifting, boxing and judo have consistently contributed medals, while swimming, despite making steady progress in recent years, is still searching for India’s second-ever Commonwealth Games swimming medal.

The country’s lone medal in the sport came when Khazan Singh won bronze in the men’s 200m butterfly at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Since then, Indian swimmers have come close on a few occasions but are yet to return to the podium, with the medal tally standing at zero across the last four editions.

Weightlifting has been India’s most consistent performer among these disciplines, producing 41 medals since Delhi 2010. Athletics has contributed 26 medals, recovering from a lean phase in 2014 and 2018 with an eight-medal haul in Birmingham. Boxing has added 28 medals, showcasing its reputation as one of India’s most reliable Commonwealth sports, while judo has quietly chipped in with 11 medals, often performing above expectations despite fielding relatively small contingents.

A different road to success

Glasgow 2026 will test India’s ability to adapt more than any recent Commonwealth Games.

The country can no longer depend on wrestling, badminton or table tennis to deliver a sizeable portion of its medals. Instead, success will be determined by whether athletics fulfils its promise, weightlifting maintains its remarkable consistency and boxing once again produces under pressure. Judo and swimming may contribute fewer medals, but in a condensed Games programme, every podium finish could prove crucial.

The challenge is undoubtedly greater than in previous editions. Yet, it also presents an opportunity for a new generation of sports to redefine India’s Commonwealth Games identity.

If these five disciplines perform to their potential, Glasgow could mark the beginning of a new chapter — one where India’s medal tally is driven not by its traditional powerhouses but by a broader and more balanced sporting ecosystem.

West Ham have agreed a £68 million deal to sell winger Crysencio Summerville to Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal.

This figure represents a significant increase on the £39 million bid previously understood to have been made by Serie A side Roma, with Manchester United and Aston Villa also having shown interest in the 24-year-old.

Summerville, who still has three years remaining on his contract at the London Stadium, has been widely expected to depart following West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League in May.

While United and Villa were keen to keep him in the top flight, Roma had appeared closest to securing his signature before the Saudi club’s considerably higher offer.

The Netherlands international is now expected to undergo a medical and finalise a long-term contract.

This move will conclude his six-year tenure in England, which began when he joined Leeds from Feyenoord in 2020.

During his time at Elland Road, he scored 25 goals in 89 appearances before moving to the Hammers after Leeds failed to secure promotion in 2024.

Last season, Summerville featured 31 times for West Ham, netting five goals as the club faced relegation.

His performances, however, earned him a call-up to his national side’s World Cup squad, where he scored twice before the team’s elimination by Morocco in the last 32.

Should the deal be completed it would mark West Ham’s second big-money exit this summer following the move of Mateus Fernandes to Tottenham Hotspur.

Spurs reached an agreement with West Ham to capture the services of Fernandes for a guaranteed fee of £85m.

Fernandes has signed a long-term contract with the Premier League club and will aim to avoid the unwanted ignominy of a third consecutive relegation after unsuccessful survival battles with Southampton and West Ham in recent seasons.

“I’m very excited for this next step. Spurs is a massive club and the head coach was a key part of why I have decided to join,” Fernandes told the official club website.

“When we spoke, it was very special. We look at football in the same way – going onto the pitch as a strong team, with fight and energy, to try and win every game.

“I can’t wait to get started, to meet the fans, to meet everyone and give everything for the club.”

Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter has urged the world of football to kick Gianni Infantino out of the role, claiming the recent World Cup “lost its credibility” due to the actions of his successor.

Blatter – whose own Fifa presidency was rife with accusations of corruption – insisted that “politics must not be allowed to overshadow the game”, seemingly in reference to Infantino’s close relationship with US president Donald Trump, which helped lead to the controversial overturning of USA striker Folarin Balogun’s ban for the red card he received against Bosnia.

Trump intervened, getting on the phone to Infantino urging him to look at Balogun’s sending off and, in due course, Fifa unprecedentedly suspended the ban for a year, enabling the forward to play in the last-16 clash with Belgium, where the US were hammered 4-1.

And reflecting on the World Cup, which ended on Sunday evening with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 after extra time in an ill-tempered final, Blatter was unimpressed.

“The longest World Cup has come to an end – with the right champions,” he wrote on social media. “But on the way to the final whistle, the tournament had lost its credibility.

“Politics must not be allowed to overshadow the game. Now it is up to the fans, players and national associations to reclaim football and bring it back to its roots under new leadership.”

Blatter followed this missive with a string of hashtags including ‘Fifa half-time show’, ‘Donald Trump’ and ‘Gianni Infantino’.

The ex-Fifa president wasn’t the only man to criticise Infantino and call for his removal, with LaLiga president Javier Tebas specifically calling out the Balogun incident.

“The suspension of the American player’s ban is an extremely serious matter,” said Tebas in an interview with Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“They were lucky that Belgium eliminated the US because otherwise a case could have arisen that might have cost Infantino his job. Since Belgium won, they managed to bury the matter. But these things are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Tebas went further, saying he believe Fifa is “destroying the football industry” by expanding international competitions at the expense of domestic leagues and clubs.

When asked if he believes Infantino should quit, Tebas said: “In my opinion, yes, I think his time is up.”

Infantino said back in April that he would seek re-election for a fourth term as Fifa president, with the vote for the 2027-2031 cycle scheduled to take place in Morocco on 18 March next year. He may well run unopposed but even if another candidate emerges, the chances of them winning are miniscule.

“He ⁠shouldn’t stay, but the current state of affairs means he won’t leave,” Tebas added. “There’s no opposition candidate; no one wants to run to lose.

“This is the system, and it’s a system that’s flawed from the ground up. I’ve heard a lot of people against Infantino, who don’t ​agree with ⁠what he’s doing. They say it, but ‌then they don’t do anything.”

Tebas and Blatter aren’t the only dissenting voices, with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin not attending the World Cup final following a series of disagreements between Uefa and Fifa over disciplinary procedures, refereeing logistics and match operations.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Warren Zaire-Emery has emerged as the latest midfield transfer target for Manchester United with interest dating back to 2023

Manchester United are reportedly weighing up a €60million (£51m) offer for Paris Saint-Germain star Warren Zaire-Emery. Old Trafford chiefs first considered a move for the midfielder back in 2023 when he was just 17 and it looks as though he could be targeted as their third midfield signing this summer.

Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans have already joined for a combined £85m with AS Roma’s Manu Kone and Alex Scott of Bournemouth emerging as other targets.

With the likes of Sandro Tonali, Elliot Anderson and Mateus Fernandes moving for significant fees, United will likely have to fork out to make another signing but Zaire-Emery could be the solution. The 20-year-old has been on the fringes at PSG which could help United strike a deal.

According to French outlet Top Mercato, he is highly-regarded by those at the club, so much so that a €60million (£51m) approach is being ‘prepared’ in order to see PSG’s stance on a potential sale.

The report goes on to add that the European champions value him at closer to €80m (£68m). Zaire-Emery made 54 appearances in the 2025/26 season and followed that up with 109 minutes at the World Cup for France.

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It is unclear whether or not Zaire-Emery would consider a move away from the French capital having made so many appearances in both midfield and at right-back

However, injuries to Fabian Ruiz and Achraf Hakimi offered him more minutes but Luis Enrique relegated him back to the bench when those players were back fit and for PSG’s most important matches.

Attackers have also been under consideration by those at United with Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye and Crysencio Summerville emerging as targets.

The latter looked set for a move to AS Roma but has instead opted to join Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal after they had a sensational €80m (£68m) bid accepted.

Interest from United in the Dutch winger had cooled over recent weeks with any move linked to the future of Marcus Rashford. He looks set to stay at his boyhood club with Barcelona having signed Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi to permanent deals.

United kick off their 2026/27 campaign away to newly-promoted Hull City. Their pre-season has already started with Rashford possibly featuring in one or two friendlies once back from his mandatory break after the World Cup.

Stuttgart entered the race for Leo Sauer alongside the negotiations with VfL Wolfsburg for Dženan Pejčinović. The Slovak international scored three goals for Feyenoord in 20 Eredivisie appearances last term.

Hoffenheim are already on the track as the potential alternative to RB Salzburg’s Adam Daghim, who spent last season on loan at Wolfsburg. According to several reports, the Sinsheim club are currently prioritizing the deal for the Danish winger.

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Saur had his breakthrough season in 2024/25 when he scored seven league goals in his loan stint at NAC Breda. The now 20-year-old was one of the top performers when Slovakia stunned Germany in the opening fixture for the World Cup qualifiers last year.

More than a decade on from Lance Armstrong’s disgrace, cycling is still unable to shake the shadows of its past. The sport’s paranoia over doping and its inability to ever truly prove itself has been in the spotlight again this week, as a result of some unusual measures to combat doping which have possibly had unintended consequences.

Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard and race leader and four-time winner Tadej Pogacar were both woken in the small hours of Sunday for out-of-hours doping tests. Visma-Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard was woken up at 2am, Pogacar at 5am; the latter said he could not get back to sleep afterwards. The tests occurred mere hours before a difficult mountain stage heading to the hors-categorie climb of Plateau de Solaison in the Alps, a key point in the three-week race.

The regulations of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling’s governing body, state that usually riders are tested between the hours of 6am and 11pm, with riders required to give one-hour whereabouts windows each day and accept that they may additionally be tested outside those times. The UCI has delegated responsibility for doping controls to the International Testing Agency (ITA) since 2021, and the latter required permission from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to conduct these nocturnal visits, as well as from a Parisian judge.

Those tests raised eyebrows because of their unusual times but may not have led to anything else, had Vingegaard not crashed out of the race that same day.

What seemed an innocuous crash on an awkward but otherwise inconsequential piece of road has acquired greater significance in light of the fact that his sleep was heavily disturbed by the 2am call and could possibly have led to lapses in concentration during a hard day’s racing. The Dane is not prone to crashing; he had never previously abandoned a grand tour and had come through five Tours de France unscathed. It is certainly an unusual occurrence.

His Tour is “ruined”, as Pogacar put it, and the Slovenian, as well as other riders and commentators, openly speculated that the late-night doping test may have played a part. Remco Evenepoel, who won stage 15, described the 2am call as “inhuman”.

Cycling’s most famous doper – Armstrong – then accused anti-doping officials of “human rights issues”, although it feels as though you must take any of the American’s proclamations on drug-related issues in the sport with a pinch, or perhaps vat, of salt. Either way, it has sparked a furore around whether such out-of-hours testing is fair to the riders, or necessary at all.

The whole point of night-time doping is to catch riders micro-dosing performance-enhancing substances such as EPO, which would otherwise go undetected. The UCI’s own rules say as much: “It is known that some riders use low doses of EPO during these hours so that it will be undetectable in the morning.” There is a clear case to be made for the sport to permit this sort of testing given its heavily chequered past.

Former rider Jonathan Vaughters, who admitted blood doping on the US Postal team and who now manages the EF Education-EasyPost team which is riding the Tour, wrote on X: “If [the] UCI had tested us in 2001 at 2am? We’d all have been suspended and saved the sport 25 years of drama.”

Twenty-five years of further drama is what the likes of the UCI and ITA are trying to avoid. And the late-night testing is by design highly unusual: the UCI’s own regulations say it will not test between the hours of 11pm and 6am “unless it has a serious and specific suspicion that the rider may be engaged in doping”. Cycling Weekly has reported that a number of teams, believed to be up to eight, have also been subjected to night-time testing at this Tour, suggesting that the governing body has widespread “serious and specific” suspicions about a number of riders, or teams.

We may never know the results of any of these tests – the ITA said that like all tests it conducts, the outcomes “would be published according to our public disclosure policy, only in the case of an apparent anti-doping rule violation”. But if they have been as prevalent as has been reported, that suggests there is significant paranoia about doping in the current edition of the Tour. We can only hope that that is unfounded.

But is it fair to disturb riders in the middle of the night for a doping test, when recovery is so crucial to the utterly gruelling experience of riding a grand tour, and so hard to come by? Perhaps the bigger question is whether testing the integrity of the sport in this way more important than playing fair?

Pogacar himself seemed resigned to it being a necessary evil. The race leader said on Sunday that he “totally accepts” the irregular tests “if this is necessary to prove that we are riding clean”.

Vingegaard, whose Tour dreams have been crushed, is a very measured character and struck the sort of note one would expect from him. He said: “It’s good that they test, but when it’s affecting performance and your sleep, I don’t think it’s so good.” He refused to say his crash was to do with his lack of sleep: “I don’t want to blame it on that, because it’s a bicycle race, and crashes happen in bicycle races.”

Evenepoel, now up to second overall, is a far more outspoken character and he was blunt in his assessment: “It’s inhuman and this is something we actually should not accept as athletes, because everybody knows sleep is the only recovery that we have in the night. This is the hardest and the biggest race in the world. This is a shame that this happened, and I hope it doesn’t happen any more in the future.”

Which gets to the fundamental point. Riders are aware that doping controls are a fact of life and cycling more than any other sport has to bear the cross of its past. But in a sport as inherently unsafe as cycling, which has seen several riders killed in horrific crashes in recent years, everything must be done to keep them as safe as possible – including letting them recover between long and exhausting days of racing. Vingegaard himself said he “luckily” only sustained a broken collarbone. It could have been much worse.

The ITA said it was “conscious that night-time testing may be disruptive to riders’ rest and recovery. Due consideration has therefore been given to minimise as much as possible the impact testing activities have on riders.” But it added it “has the responsibility to ensure the effectiveness of the cycling anti‑doping programme and the integrity of cycling races”. It is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Funding for anti-doping testing in cycling has heavily increased since the ITA took responsibility for it in 2021, but there has not been a slew of positive tests since then. Either the mechanisms to cheat are becoming more sophisticated and the methods of detection poorer, or cyclists really aren’t cheating the way they used to.

The anti-doping process is deliberately opaque and unpredictable so dopers can’t get one step ahead of the authorities, but that also means the authorities aren’t required to explain, or able to justify, their decisions, either to the riders or the public.

You can’t prove something you can’t catch; that is the issue the ITA and UCI are wrestling with. Riders are aware of it too – they have to support the anti-doping authorities, because cycling has a lot to atone for, but equally they have to protect their own health, especially at one of the toughest sporting events on the planet.

The 2am testing is here to stay – but whether it should be is another matter, and another question for which the sport has no easy answers.

There are two Hardware Challenges available to complete in Battlefield 6 Season 4. Season 4 is now live, and players can start progressing these challenges right away. Unlike the previous season, there are only two rewards this time, both of which come with their own advantages and drawbacks. Fortunately, the challenges are quite easy to complete and won’t take much time.

Read on to learn about all Hardware challenges and rewards in Battlefield 6 Season 4.

Battlefield 6 Season 4: All hardware challenges and rewards

Battlefield 6 Season 4 features two Hardware Challenges that offer two exclusive rewards. Here are the challenges and their rewards:

• Attachment/M87A1/ 24′ Extended: Kills and Assists in Multiplayer. Kills with Shotguns count double, or Kills and Assists in Battle Royale. Kills with Shotguns count double.
• Sight/1P86 LPVO: Kills and Assists while ADS. Kills with VSSM count double.

Here’s what you can expect from these two attachments:

M87A1/ 24′ Extended (Attachment)

The Attachment/M87A1/ 24′ Extended for a non-double-barreled shotgun is a great addition to dominate close-range fights. It simply increases the projectile velocity of the weapon, so enemies will get less time to move out of the path, making shots much easier to land.

Read more: How to unlock EF88 assault rifle in Battlefield 6

However, it does come with a few drawbacks. If you equip this extended sight, it will reduce the weapon’s Aim Down Sight (ADS) speed and slightly lower your overall mobility.

1P86 LPVO (Sight)

The 1P86 LPVO is the perfect competitor of the SU-230 LPVO. While the SU-239 LPVO Optic offers a magnification range of 1.0x to 4.0x, players can now equip the 1P86 LPVO Optic for a slightly higher range of 1.5x to 4.5x. Although the difference is only 0.5x magnification, it can sometimes create a huge difference during a gunfight.

Check out: Battlefield 6 Season 4: Everything we know

BF6 hardware challenges from previous seasons

If you haven’t collected the Season 3 Hardware challenge rewards, then you can get them now. Here’s a list of rewards along with their challenges:

• Burst fire – Get 40 kills with Carbines or SMGs
• Aftermarket Buffer – Get 40 kills with Assault Rifles or DMRs
• Speed Holster – Get 10 kills with Sidearms
• Gunslinger – Get 10 kills with Sidearms

That concludes everything you need to know regarding all Hardware challenges and rewards in Battlefield 6 Season 4.

Check out the links below for more such guides: