Mumbai: At Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Bengaluru centre, where many of India’s distance runners who train in the country are based, Gulveer Singh’s Commonwealth Games (CWG) races were watched on the common area’s television.
“Gulveer was one of them not too long ago,” Surinder Singh Bhandari, India’s top distance runner turned coach based at SAI Bengaluru, said. “And now that they’ve seen him go from there to doing things that he did at the CWG, the motivation has rubbed off on others. There was a sense of pride.”
The things that he did at the CWG were never done before. Which was to be the first Indian to wear two track and field medals in a single edition of the Games. In the 5,000m and 10,000m, no less, events where the CWG level is fairly high and where Indians have little precedence of excelling.
Gulveer’s sensational distance double from a rousing spectacle of sprint finishes, along with Tejaswin Shankar’s inspiring decathlon medal from a remarkable show of grit, were hall of fame worthy in Indian athletics’ CWG history.
In that history, from three medals in 2014 Glasgow, three in 2018 Gold Coast and eight in 2022 Birmingham, 2026 Glasgow delivered a double-digit count of 10 (excluding 6 in para athletics). More than the number, though, it’s the different events in which Indian athletes broke new ground, like the distance and decathlon, that stands out.
Common between the 10 medals this time and the eight four years ago were four from jumps – Sarvesh Kushare took over from Tejaswin in high jump, Murali Sreeshankar ensured he maintained his silver in a fine comeback, and Praveen Chithravel and Selva Prabhu kept a couple of triple jump medals at home.
What added to the Glasgow kitty from Birmingham was the return of men’s javelin (courtesy Neeraj Chopra, who missed the 2022 edition, and Yashvir Singh on debut) and women’s discus (courtesy Seema Kaliramna) to the tally. What dropped was silverware from race walkers (Priyanka Goswami and Sandeep Kumar medalled in 2022), and the sight of an Indian atop the podium, which was there across the previous three editions. Sprints, relay and race walk had sub-par returns.
Some nice hits, a few notable misses, but all in all, in one of the few sports in which competition is way better at the Commonwealth level than the continental, athletics gave a good account ahead of next month’s Asian Games.
“You have to see the overall performance. But even purely in terms of medals, 10 is an improvement,” said Adille Sumariwalla, Athletics Federation of India (AFI) spokesperson. “We had not treated this CWG as a major event. Our focus was always the Asian Games. This is a good confidence booster for it.”
Gulveer’s Glasgow glow is front and centre in that. The 28-year-old’s success is also testament that, amid the flurry of national records being taken down at home weeks before the Games, there is no substitute to continued quality training and consistent experience in world-class competitions.
Except the inter-state in Bhubaneswar in June and the Tata Steel World 25K Kolkata last December, Gulveer has only competed in meets abroad since the start of 2025. He spends most of the year in USA’s Colorado Springs, his altitude training base for a couple of years now under coach Scott Simmons.
“Gulveer is doing everything right. He is sticking to one coach, listening to him, and following a programme. He’s competing internationally and in quality competitions,” said Sumariwalla. “Our athletes sometimes don’t want to compete in good competitions, even those at home, because they’re scared to lose.”
Bhandari recalled being with Gulveer in his first international competition, the 2023 Asian Championships. The Army runner was overwhelmed with “fear”, which only eased as he took part in more competitions abroad and trained in the company of world-class distance runners in Colorado Springs.
“Gradually it made him believe that he is not too far away from those top distance runners,” said Bhandari, whose 10,000m national record Gulveer broke. “The best thing about him is his focus, dedication and consistency to his training and targets.”
From a below-par Tokyo World Championships last year where he struggled to adjust to the nuances of a tactical race to this CWG where he aced it by staying with the pack before unleashing the final kick, Gulveer showed he is a quick learner. “He always had the ability to produce that final kick, which has been refined over the years,” said Bhandari.
Gulveer’s silver-bronze, to go with Avinash Sable 3,000m steeplechase silver at the 2022 CWG, adds another chapter to the growing presence of Indian distance runners on the world stage.
“Indian distance runners are pushing themselves constantly, and reaching world-class levels,” said Bhandari.
Also world-class was Tejaswin’s first in decathlon, a bronze earned against odds of a flared-up knee injury. And Yashvir’s 85.41m last throw for bronze to join Chopra on the javelin podium, another first for India at the CWG. And Sreeshankar’s second CWG silver, this time in his comeback journey from a career-threatening knee injury, also bodes well for what lies ahead.
