Answer first: the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games is a deliberately compact edition — roughly ten sports across a small cluster of existing venues, rather than the twenty-sport programmes of recent editions. Several disciplines Indian fans expect to see, hockey and squash among them, have been reported as absent. This 6 Club guide explains what that means for following India, and how to build a schedule in IST. It contains no medal predictions and no projected tallies. Confirm every programme and timing detail on the official Commonwealth Sport site.
If you sat down expecting the Games you watched in Birmingham and found half the schedule missing, you have not misremembered. This edition is structurally different, and understanding why saves a lot of searching for events that are not there.
Why This Edition Is Smaller
The short version: the originally selected host withdrew on cost grounds, and Glasgow — which had hosted successfully in 2014 and still had the venues — agreed to step in on the explicit condition that the Games would be scaled down. No new construction, a small venue cluster, a compressed programme. That was the price of the edition happening at all.
It is a reasonable trade and it is also a genuine loss for several countries, India included, because a smaller programme means fewer medal events and a narrower set of disciplines. The Commonwealth Games has cycled through programme sizes before, but this is the sharpest recent contraction.
What Has Been Reported as On the Programme
The reported sport list runs to around ten disciplines, with para events integrated into several of them rather than run separately.
| Sport | Why it matters for an Indian viewer |
|---|---|
| Athletics (incl. para athletics) | The largest medal-event pool on any Games programme; India’s field events in particular have grown in international standing. |
| Swimming (incl. para swimming) | Also medal-dense. Historically not India’s strongest area at this level, but a large share of the total events. |
| Artistic gymnastics | One of the search rows driving interest this year; individual apparatus finals are compact and highly watchable. |
| Weightlifting and para powerlifting | A long-standing Indian strength at Commonwealth level, contested in bodyweight categories. |
| Boxing | Another established Indian discipline, and one where the double-bronze rule affects the medal table arithmetic. |
| Judo | Weight-category combat sport, same double-bronze structure as boxing. |
| Track cycling (incl. para track cycling) | Velodrome-based, medal-dense, and a sport where the session format rewards knowing the event names in advance. |
| Netball, bowls, 3x3 basketball | Core Commonwealth team sports. Fewer medals each, but they occupy a lot of the broadcast schedule. |
Treat that table as orientation, not gospel. Sport programmes, the events within each sport and the session structure are all set by the organisers and can be revised; the official site is the version that gets corrected.
The Sports Indian Fans Are Searching For and Not Finding
This is the part worth being direct about, because a lot of people are searching for events that are not on this programme.
- Hockey — reported as not included. For an Indian audience this is the most conspicuous absence, given the profile of both the men’s and women’s sides.
- Squash — reported as not included, despite being a sport in which Indian players have been genuinely competitive at Commonwealth level.
- Badminton, table tennis, wrestling and shooting — all disciplines associated with strong recent Indian Commonwealth performances, and all reported as outside this programme.
- Cricket — the women’s T20 competition that appeared in Birmingham is not a fixture of every edition and has been reported as absent here.
None of this is a judgement on those sports. It is a venue and budget decision. But it does mean that comparing India’s performance at this edition with the last one is not a like-for-like comparison, and anyone drawing conclusions from a smaller total is comparing two different competitions. Our explainer on how the medal table is ranked covers why medal-event counts matter more than raw totals when comparing across editions.
Building a Schedule That Works From India
Glasgow runs on British Summer Time in late July, which is four and a half hours behind Indian Standard Time. That is a friendly gap: evening sessions in Scotland land late evening in India rather than at 4 am.
- Open the official schedule and filter for finals. Heats, qualifying and preliminary rounds fill most of the timetable and decide nothing on the medal table.
- Add 4 hours 30 minutes to each local session time to get IST. A 10:00 am local morning session is 2:30 pm IST; a 7:00 pm local evening session is 11:30 pm IST.
- Note the sport and the specific event, not just the session. “Athletics evening session” can mean three finals or none.
- Re-check the day before. Sessions move, particularly where weather or a venue changeover is involved, and the official site is the only place the change appears first.
For the mechanics of tracking results live once a session starts — official versus unofficial boards, refresh behaviour, and why an app can sit several minutes behind reality — see our guide to following live results.
Why We Do Not Publish Medal Projections
You will find plenty of pages listing India’s “medal hopes” with implied numbers attached. We do not do that, for the same reason we do not print a live tally: it is a guess dressed as information. Entry lists change, athletes withdraw, draws matter enormously in combat sports, and a projection published a week before a Games has no mechanism to be right.
What is genuinely useful instead is knowing where India is entered and when those events are decided, which is exactly what the official entry lists give you. For the individual-athlete background that makes a session worth watching, our profile of Mirabai Chanu and the weightlifting format is the model: history, rules, and what to look for — no forecast.
Between Sessions: The 6 Club Side
Games days are long and mostly consist of waiting. 6 Club runs quick casual rounds that have nothing to do with any sport, any athlete or any result — no game here resolves on a medal, and we offer no betting or odds. If that suits the gaps, browse the 6 Club games hub, start at the 6 Club home page, or register an account. Decide the budget before the first round, not during the fifth.
Play responsibly: 6 Club games are entertainment for adults aged 18 and over, never a source of income, and never a wager on a sporting outcome. We do not offer betting, odds or medal predictions. Set a limit, take breaks, and stop if play stops feeling in control — the warning signs of problem gambling are worth knowing before you need them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the CWG 2026 sport programme so much smaller?
Because Glasgow stepped in at short notice after the originally selected host withdrew on cost grounds, and it accepted the Games on the condition that the edition would be compact: a small number of sports staged across a handful of existing venues, with no new construction. Reducing the programme was the trade-off that allowed the Games to go ahead at all.
Is hockey part of the Commonwealth Games 2026?
Hockey has been widely reported as not being on the compact Glasgow 2026 programme. It is one of several sports left out of this edition to keep the Games within the reduced venue and budget footprint. Because programme decisions are made and occasionally revised by the organisers, confirm the final sport list on the official Commonwealth Sport website rather than relying on a blog.
What about squash, shooting, wrestling and badminton?
These sports have all featured in recent Commonwealth Games editions and have been reported as absent from the reduced Glasgow programme. That matters a great deal for Indian viewers, because several of them are disciplines in which India has historically been among the strongest Commonwealth nations. Check the official sport list to confirm before assuming either way.
Which sports are on the Glasgow 2026 programme?
The programme has been reported as around ten sports, including athletics, swimming, artistic gymnastics, track cycling, boxing, judo, weightlifting, netball, bowls and 3x3 basketball, with integrated para events in several of them. Treat that as a guide and verify the current list, the events within each sport and the session times on the official Games site.
Does 6 Club predict how many medals India will win?
No. We do not publish medal predictions, forecasts, projected tallies or any form of odds, on these Games or anything else. Predicting a medal count requires assumptions about entries, form and draw that nobody outside a team actually has, and a page that publishes one is guessing with a confident font. We explain the structure and point you at the official results.
How do I convert the Games schedule to Indian Standard Time?
A Games staged in the United Kingdom during summer runs on British Summer Time, which is four and a half hours behind Indian Standard Time. A session listed at 6:00 pm local is therefore 10:30 pm IST. Do the conversion once from the official schedule, write the sessions down, and you will not be caught out at 1 am watching qualifying.
Where is the official schedule and entry list published?
On the official Commonwealth Sport site and the host edition’s official Games website. Those are the versions that get corrected when a session moves. Third-party schedules are copies and frequently lag behind changes by a day or more, which is the usual reason people turn up for an event that has already finished.
How large is India’s contingent for these Games?
Contingent size is confirmed by the Indian Olympic Association and the organisers, and with a reduced programme it is necessarily smaller than for editions with twice as many sports. Rather than repeating a number that may already have changed, check the official entry lists by sport on the Games site, which show exactly who is entered in which event.