As Arundhati Choudhary entered the ring, for the biggest bout of her career, she wanted to make sure she left with a gold and not with excuses. The 23-year-old was running a 102-degree fever on 1 August, the day of the women’s 70kg boxing final at the Commonwealth Games 2026. She popped a paracetamol, shoved any doubts caused by her illness to the back of her mind and swaggered out.
“It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort to get an opportunity like that,” Choudhary said during a media interaction a day after her bout. “An event like the Commonwealth Games comes every four years. I kept telling myself, ‘Ok I have fever, but I can forget that for 9 minutes.’ Once I was in the ring, I didn’t give it a thought.”
Choudhary, who hails from Kota in Rajasthan, a city known more for IIT and IAS hopefuls rather than aspiring boxers, aced the test. Having overcome defending champion Rosie Eccles in the semi-final the previous day, she defeated England’s Chantelle Reid, the bronze medallist at the 2025 World Championship, 5-0 to capture gold.
It was her first medal in any multi-sport event and underlined India’s dominance in boxing at CWG 2026 in Glasgow, which concluded on 2 August. India finished fourth in the final medal tally, with a total of 39 medals, including 13 gold, 17 silver and nine bronze. Of that, the boxers contributed seven gold and three silver.
Though Lovlina Borgohain, the poster girl of women’s boxing and one of the flagbearers for India during the opening ceremony, earned a silver, five women boxers landed a gold. It was not only the most successful CWG for Indian boxers, but also the first time in the Games’ history that one country had bagged as many as seven gold medals in the sport.
“Just a few months ago, we had won five gold medals at the Asian Championships. This result at the Commonwealth Games wasn’t achieved in a vacuum,” Santiago Nieva, India’s head coach, said during the media interaction. “Compared to the 2022 Birmingham Games, where India won only three gold medals, this is a remarkable improvement. The competition at the Games was tough and we exceeded our expectations. This is not the Olympics but we have beaten every country here. England is traditionally one of the strongest boxing nations, and we defeated them in six of eight bouts. There is never a guarantee of a medal at any major event, but we are definitely on the right track.”
Since the boxing breakthrough at the 2008 Beijing Games, when Vijender Singh became the first Indian boxer to win an Olympic medal as he earned bronze in the middleweight category, Indian boxers have delivered consistently on the world stage. While M.C. Mary Kom (2012) and Borgohain (2020) have won bronze at the Olympics, India has won multiple medals at world championships. Women have led the boxing revolution in the country. Even in Glasgow, of India’s 10 medals in boxing, seven were won by women.
Women's golden charge
Preeti Pawar dominated her weight category, winning her Round of 16 with an RSC (referee stops contest) before a unanimous 5-0 sweep in her last three matches to win gold in the 54kg category. World champion Jaismine Lamboria overcame a bout of illness just 40 days before CWG 2026 to stamp her authority in the 57kg category, while Asian champion Priya Ghanghas reigned supreme in the 60kg weight class.
However, India’s continued success in women’s boxing is best explained through the case of Sakshi Chaudhary. The 25-year-old beat Nikhat Zareen and Minakshi Hooda, the former and reigning world champions respectively, in the trials to represent India in the 51kg category at CWG 2026. Having beaten the fierce competition at home, Chaudhary cruised to a gold with four straight 5-0 wins. In the final, she defeated England’s Ruby “pocket rocket” White, who was on a 68-match unbeaten streak.
“We have an exceptional first-line team, but we also have fantastic number twos, number threes and number fours,” Boxing Federation of India (BFI) chief Ajay Singh told reporters. “That bench strength is one of our biggest strengths. We now have four boxers in many weight categories, all capable of beating each other on any given day.”
In the men’s field, Sachin Siwach (60kg) and Ankush Panghal (80kg) struck gold, while Jadumani Singh (55kg) and Narender Berwal (+90kg) won silver. Siwach probably had the trickiest path of all Indian boxers, as he started his campaign in the Round of 32. He survived a tough fight against Tryagain Morning Ndevelo of Namibia in the final to emerge a 3-2 winner.
Olympic road ahead
For Indian boxers, CWG not only served as a milestone marker but also a stepping stone to bigger challenges ahead, the first of which will arrive sooner than they would have liked. The Indian boxing squad will have to quickly get over the CWG euphoria and switch up preparations for the 2026 Asian Games, which will take place in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from 19 September to 4 October. All the boxers selected for the Asian Games competed in Glasgow.
Of the three major multi-sport events the country competes in, CWG has a much weaker boxing field compared to the Asian Games, while the Olympics is a massive step up. England and Northern Ireland were the only big boxing nations at CWG 2026. There were only five boxers in the women’s 75kg category, and Borgohain, who started her campaign in the final four, was assured of a medal even before she had thrown a punch as both losing semi-finalists were awarded bronze.
“The Asian Games for us is like the Olympics,” Singh said. “The best teams in the world today are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and India, and all three are in Asia. Add a very strong Chinese contingent and you understand why it is much tougher.”
At Birmingham 2022, India had finished second in the medals tally in boxing with three gold, one silver and three bronze. However, at the deferred 2022 Asian Games, they were ninth in the boxing medal tally, with just one silver and three bronze. Even the number of weight categories will drop down from 14 at CWG 2026 to 11 at Asian Games 2026, making it more difficult to replicate the success.
“There is always a new competition, a new motivation for us,” said Nieva. “Our boxers know they will always have to prove themselves again. But it is always great to have that experience of having performed well.”
The Olympics remains the endgame. A star-studded Indian boxing contingent, led by Zareen, arrived at the 2024 Paris Games with great expectations but fell well short, returning empty handed from the French capital. Since then, Nieva has been brought in as the head coach, and the entire machinery is gearing towards producing an Olympic medallist yet again. The women’s team is bustling with young talent who don’t quite carry the scars of those misses.
The hustle for spots at Los Angeles 2028 begins early next year as the 2027 World Championships, scheduled to take place in April, serves as the first Olympic qualifier.
Deepti Patwardhan is a sportswriter based in Mumbai.