Indian boxer Jaismine Lamboria and other athletes during the closing ceremony of the CWG 2026. (PTI Photo)

PUNE: The Glasgow Commonwealth Games are over. The baton passes to India for the Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad, dubbed ‘Amdavad 2030’. With the event returning home after 20 years, India will be aiming not only to stage a better Games than Delhi 2010 but also to improve on its best-ever medal haul. At the 2010 Delhi Games, India won a record 101 medals to finish second in the overall standings.For Indian sport, Glasgow offered a mixed picture. The 39 medals collected this time were fewer than the 61 in Birmingham 2022, 66 in Gold Coast 2018 and 64 in Glasgow 2014. More importantly, those medals came from just six sports. By contrast, India’s medals had come from 17 sports in 2010, 11 in 2014, 15 in 2018 and 13 in 2022.The explanation lies partly in the programme itself. Glasgow did not include sports where India has traditionally been strong. India has won 135 medals in shooting between 1966 and 2018, excluding the 1970 Edinburgh edition. Wrestling has fetched India 114 medals across 18 editions since 1934. Yet Glasgow had no shooting, wrestling, hockey, badminton, archery or table tennis, which together had contributed 67 medals for India in Delhi 2010.As India prepares to host in 2030, the focus will be on retaining the positives from Glasgow while also bringing back its strongest disciplines.

Athletics leads the way

Athletics emerged as the biggest winner for India, with medals in the men’s 10,000m and 5,000m long jump, decathlon, high jump, triple jump and para-athletics adding up to 16 medals. What stood out most was the history made by Gulveer Singh, who won silver in the 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m and Tejaswin Shankar, who claimed decathlon bronze.Yash Vir Singh also broke new ground by winning a javelin bronze in a field featuring Olympic and world champions, as well as world leaders and record holders. The para-athletes contributed three gold, two silver and one bronze, even as the 4x400m relay team had to settle for sixth place.“The performance was way better than expected. This has been a good result and it will only improve in the years to come. The result reflects the policies that the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has adopted in the past few years,” former World Championships bronze medallist and current AFI senior vice-president Anju Bobby George told TOI.“Now we plan the training programme according to individual athletes’ requirements rather than designing a blanket programme for everyone. Some athletes train in the USA, some in Europe, because that is what best suits their future. The results are definitely going to improve in 2030 and beyond, as we also plan to host the Olympics,” she added.

Boxers make a statement

Boxing also delivered strongly, with seven gold among the 13 medals won. While the level of competition at the Commonwealth Games is not as demanding as at the Asian Games or Olympics, the performances will still provide a valuable confidence boost.“It is not as if these were the only medals our boxers have won so far. We had world champions, an Olympic medallist and Asian Games and Asian Championships winners at the Glasgow CWG. The field may not have been as strong as the Asiad, but it was not weak either. A good show at a competition like this gives a boost to the boxers,” 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medallist Vijender Singh told TOI.

Judokas earn their place in the spotlight

With two historic gold and three medals overall, Indian judokas Asmita Dey, Harsh Singh and Yamini Mourya also deserve special mention. A sport that has often struggled for attention in the past appears to be finding its footing.If judo can continue on this trajectory, the possibilities are immense. With 15 medal events at the Olympics and proper investment and a cleaner administrative setup, India has genuine medal potential at the world level too.

Roulette King has taught Trevor Rogers the value of saying no, a lesson the Cranbourne trainer never envisioned would result in an expansion of his small racing stable.

The reward for his unwavering stance against selling the untapped four-year-old came when a persistent potential buyer, unable to acquire Roulette King, offered Rogers a horse to train instead.

Rogers accepted the offer, gaining a horse from one of the many well-resourced owners who had been keen on Roulette King. He views this as a bonus, particularly as Roulette King remains in his care.

“I actually had one of the last bidders on the horse more or less said, ‘if I can’t buy him can I give you one’, so he gave me a horse to train,” Rogers stated. “It’s worked out good for me.”

Winsilence, a four-year-old by Ghaiyyath, arrived at Rogers’ stable from Lindsay Park and is close to breaking his maiden status, following a third and a fourth at Sale.

It was at Sale where Roulette King recorded his first victory at his second start, embarking on a four-race winning streak that ultimately led to the Group 2 Alister Clark Stakes (2000m) at Caulfield on March 21.

The significant offers began to pour in after that performance, heightening Rogers’ enthusiasm for the future prospects of the Casino Prince colt, who was secured by owners for $50,000 at the 2024 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale.

Roulette King is expected to be among the nominations for the spring’s premier weight-for-age contest, the $6 million Cox Plate (2040m), when they are released on Tuesday. However, Rogers has his sights set on an even more lucrative event.

With the $10 million Golden Eagle (1500m) restricted to four-year-olds, Rogers is keen to give Roulette King the opportunity to prove his worthiness for this unique chance.

He is scheduled to reappear at jumpouts midway through this month before a potential return in the $175,000 Listed Tontonan Stakes (1400m) at Flemington on September 12.

“It’s hard to go past a race like the Golden Eagle,” Rogers said. “I’m going to probably give him on a run in a benchmark 100 or the Tontonan over 1400 at Flemington to see if he’s got enough ping in his step when he’s fresh to take on those type of horses. If he can race well in that, that gives me plenty of time to freshen him up and take him to Sydney for the 1500. We’ll obviously experiment here first to make sure we’re not going up there for no reason. This preparation is going to tell us a lot about the horse. Everything we’ve asked him, he’s done everything and beyond, so who knows?”

The Golden Eagle, which will be run at Group 1 level for the first time this year, is set to take place at Randwick on October 31.

Consider placing a bet on the Golden Eagle using Australian betting sites for competitive odds.

Sen. Ted Cruz is confident the Protect College Sports Act will hit the Senate floor this week. Whether it actually does is another matter.

Cruz, speaking with CBS Sports on Monday, was resolute. The bill received a significant boost late Friday when the Big Ten and SEC endorsed the legislation, giving it new momentum after weeks of negotiations. Cruz, one of three authors of the bipartisan legislation, said he has spoken directly with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and President Donald Trump multiple times and believes the Senate will stay in session until the bill passes.

“This bill is going to pass,” Cruz said, “and it’s going to pass this week out of the Senate.”

But between confidence and a floor vote stands a procedural labyrinth. As of late Monday afternoon, the text of the bill had yet to be finalized. “Final details are still being worked through,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a co-author of the bill.

Cloture, the step required to schedule a vote in the Senate, could drag on for several days or longer, according to a Republican Commerce Committee aide. Even if Thune filed cloture on Monday evening, that would potentially schedule the bill for a late-week vote at the earliest.

The Senate’s final week before its August recess is already congested. A spending bill, budget resolution and three or four additional competing items are fighting for floor time. The Senate is tentatively scheduled to recess Aug. 7, though that date could be extended into the weekend, sources told CBS Sports.

Big Ten, SEC join to support Protect College Sports Act, breathing new life into landmark legislation

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Cruz has a bigger vision for where this ends: President Trump signing the bill into law before a college football game kicks off later this fall.

“It is my hope that President Trump will sign this bill into law on ‘College GameDay’ this fall when the House comes back and passes it with a big bipartisan vote, following the big bipartisan vote we’re going to get in the Senate, I believe, this week,” he said.

Trump told reporters Monday that “the NIL, or whatever it is, is very close to getting solved.”

The urgency is real, though nothing about this bill has moved on schedule. It was on life support late Thursday as the Big Ten and SEC wrestled with lawmakers over language on associated entities and the revenue-share cap before a breakthrough Friday provided the two conferences with the clarity they needed.

Cruz credited the White House with playing a decisive role in forcing the breakthrough. He described what he called “very intense” conversations over the weekend involving Big Ten and SEC commissioners, university presidents, Trump adviser Randy Levine and Cody Campbell, who leads the President’s commission on college sports.

“At the end of the day, everyone recognized  No. 1, the crisis, and No. 2, that this bill is the only viable path to addressing the crisis,” Cruz said.

“I think Randy and I are common-law married in 12 states; we’ve spent so much time talking,” Cruz joked.

The associated entities provision is the mechanism meant to prevent schools from routing money to athletes through corporate sponsors and multimedia rights partners to circumvent the revenue-share cap. The final deal raised the revenue-share cap to $48.8 million, including $21.3 million from the House settlement, a $22.5 million retention pool and $5 million for non-revenue sports.

Senate passage this week and a signing ceremony on college football’s biggest weekly stage remain aspirational. Sen. Eric Schmitt, one of the three authors of the bill, appeared on CBS Sports’ College Football Insiders and said he believes the bill could snag 80-plus votes in the Senate because of the Big Ten and SEC’s endorsement. The bill still requires at least 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and if it clears the Senate, it would still need to pass the House before reaching the President’s desk.

Without a Senate vote before the August recess, the chances for passing the bill into law would shrink considerably. Most lawmakers will be focused on the federal budget and campaigning for mid-term elections when the Congressional recess ends. 

Cruz acknowledged the legislation isn’t perfect. It’s the product of three years of negotiation and months of daily sessions with Cantwell, the bill’s Democratic co-author. He said Monday the Big Ten and SEC endorsement fundamentally changed the bill’s prospects in Washington, D.C.

“Many of the hurdles this faced in the House were because of concerns the SEC and Big Ten had,” Cruz said. “And now broadening that coalition, I think it makes it much easier for Republicans and Democrats to support the bill.”

The coalition behind the bill now includes 27 athletic conferences, more than 360 colleges and universities, the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, the players associations for both the NFL and NBA, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Cruz said.

The bill would provide a limited antitrust exemption for the NCAA and its schools to enforce a cap on payments to athletes and rules related to eligibility and transfers. The bill also creates an opportunity for schools to sell media rights as one large entity rather than on a conference-by-conference basis. The Big Ten and SEC do not want to participate in the media pool and sought language making clear participation is voluntary. Smaller conferences believe that pooling media rights will help fund less-profitable sports and close the financial gap between the rest of college sports and the two biggest conferences.

“If we ended up in a world with a mini NFL, the giant powerhouses would continue to survive, but all of the rest of the schools would have their programs decimated,” Cruz said. “And when college football gets destroyed, it doesn’t just take football down with it.”

Brock Lesnar suffered a humbling defeat at the hands of Oba Femi at SummerSlam 2026, and it now looks like his in-ring career is done for good. The Beast Incarnate has been officially moved to the alumni section of WWE’s roster, potentially signaling the end of his tenure with the global juggernaut.

Lesnar was initially believed to have retired at WrestleMania 42, where he had lost to Femi as well. However, that turned out to be a ruse, and he later returned to reignite the feud. Following a win over the former NXT Champion at Clash in Italy, a third and decisive match between the two was finally set up for last weekend’s SummerSlam 2026.

The Hell in a Cell match more than lived up to the expectations. It featured multiple false finishes, with Brock Lesnar at one point even evoking his inner Undertaker. However, as fate would have it, Oba Femi eventually emerged victorious in a win that truly seemed like a passing-of-the-torch moment.

Immediately following the match on SummerSlam Night 1, fans began to wonder what lay ahead for Lesnar. It now seems like Lesnar might be hanging up his boots for good. The legendary star has been moved to the alumni section of the WWE’s roster alongside other reputed names who have worked for the company in the past.

While the promotion has yet to acknowledge Lesnar’s status, this is enough to send fans into overdrive. If SummerSlam 2026 did indeed mark the final hurrah of Brock Lesnar‘s illustrious career, it’s safe to say he’s going out on top. The match was the highlight of Night 1 and arguably even more entertaining than the headlining contest between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes.

One can only wait for WWE or Lesnar to issue a clarification on the rumors swirling online.