Commonwealth Games, 2022

[prasen9]

Chandigarh will host archery and shooting, while Birmingham will host the rest. Medals from both will count towards the final finish. Good job!

[jayakris]

Why are they doing it so early before the Games itself? Totally weird but good for us.

[arjun2761]

Will definitely help our medals tally. Perhaps, it is being done in January, so as to avoid the warmer months in India.

[sameerph]

With Commonwealth games less than few days away, this is the full list of athletes qualified for the games-

Athletics (16 - men & 18 - women) Men's Long Jump: M. Sreeshankar, Muhammed Anees Yahiya Men's Javelin Throw: Neeraj Chopra, DP Manu, Rohit Yadav Men's Triple Jump: Abdulla Aboobacker, Eldose Paul, Praveen Chitravel Men's High Jump: Tejaswin Sankar Men's 3000m Steeple Chase: Avinash Sable Men's Marathon: Nitender Rawat Men's 4x400m Relay: Noah Nirmal Tom, Muhammed Ajmal, Naganathan Pandi, Rajesh Ramesh Men's Race Walking: Sandeep Kumar, Amit Khatri Women's Long Jump: Ancy Sojan, Aishwarya Babu Women's Triple Jump: Aishwarya Babu Women's Shot Put: Manpreet Kaur Women's Hammer Throw: Sarita Romit Singh, Manju Bala Singh Women's 100m: Dhanalakshmi Sekar Women's 4x100m Relay: Dhanalakshmi Sekar, Dutee Chand, Hima Das, Srabani Nanda, MV Jilna, NS Simi Women's 100m Hurdles: Jyothi Yarraji Women's 10000m Race Walk: Priyanka Goswami, Bhawna Jat Women's Discuss Throw: Navjeet Dhillon, Seema Punia Women's Javelin Throw: Annu Rani, Shilpa Rani

Badminton Men Singles: Lakshya Sen, Srikanth Kidambi Doubles: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, B. Sumeeth Reddy Women Singles: PV Sindhu, Aakarshi Kashyap Doubles: Ashwini Ponnappa, Gayathri Gopichand, Treesa Jolly

Boxing (8 - men and 4 - women) Men Boxer Weight Category Shiva Thapa Flyweight (51 kg) Mohammad Hussamuddin Featherweight (57 kg) Amit Panghal Light Welterweight (63.5 kg) Rohit Tokas Welterweight (67 kg) Sumit Kundu Middleweight (75 kg) Ashish Kumar Light Heavyweight (80 kg) Sanjeet Kumar Heavyweight (92 kg) Sagar Super Heavyweight (+92 kg)

Women Boxer Weight Category Nitu Ganghas Minimumweight (48 kg) Nikhat Zareen Light Flyweight (50 kg) Jasmire Lamboria Lightweight (60 kg) Lovlina Borgohain Light Middleweight (70 kg)

Cricket (Women - 18) Batters: Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Shafali Verma, Sabbhineni Meghana, Jemimah Rodrigues Wicketkeepers: Yastika Bhatia, Taniya Bhatia All-rounders: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar Bowlers: Radha Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Sneh Rana STAND BY: Richa Ghosh, Simran Dil Bahadur, Poonam Yadav

Cycling (2 - Men) 1. Ronaldo Singh 2. David Beckham

Hockey Indian Men's Squad for CWG: Goalkeepers: Sreejesh P.R., Krishan Bahadur Pathak Defenders: Varun Kumar, Surender Kumar, Harmanpreet Singh (vice captain), Amit Rohidas, Jugraj Singh, Jarmanpreet Singh Midfielders: Manpreet Singh (captain), Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Shamsher Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Nilakanta Sharma Forwards: Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Abhishek

Indian Women's Squad for CWG: Goalkeepers: Savita (captain), Rajani Etimarpu Defenders: Deep Grace Ekka (vice captain), Gurjit Kaur, Nikki Pradhan, Udita Midfielders: Nisha, Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Monika, Neha, Jyoti, Navjot Kaur, Salima Tete Forwards: Vandana Katariya, Lalremsiami, Navneet Kaur, Sharmila Devi, Sangita Kumari

Judo (Men - 3 and Women - 3) Athlete Weight Category Vijay Kumar Yadav Men's 60 kg Jasleen Singh Saini Men's 66 kg Deepak Deswal Men's 100 kg Shushila Likmabam Women's 48 kg Suchika Tariyal Women's 57 kg Tulika Maan Women's +78 kg

Squash (5 - Men and 4 - Women) Men's Team Saurav Ghosal Ramit Tandon Abhay Singh Harinder Pal Sandhu Velavan Senthilkumar Women's Team Dipika Pallikal Joshna Chinappa Sunyana Kuruvilla Anahat Singh

Swimming (Men - 4) Swimmer Event Sajan Prakash 50m, 100m and 200m Butterfly Srihari Nataraj 50m, 100m and 200m Backstroke Kushagra Rawat 1500m, 200m and 400m Advait Page 1500m freestyle

Table Tennis (5 - men and 5 - women) Men's team: Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty Women's team: Manika Batra, Diya Chitale, Sreeja Akula, Reeth Rishya Para Men: Raja Aravindhan - C3-C5 Para Women: Bhavina Patel - C3-C5

Triathlon -women - 2) (Image Courtesy: Pragnya Mohan Twitter) Men: TBA Women: Sanjana Joshi, Pragnya Mohan

Weightlifting (men - 8 and women - 7) Men Weightlifter Event/Category Sanket Sargar 55 kg Gururaja Poojary 61 kg Jeremy Lalrinnunga 67 kg Achinta Sheuli 73 kg Ajay Singh 81 kg Vikas Thakur 96 kg Lovepreet Singh 109 kg Gurdeep Singh +109 kg

Women Weightlifter Event/Category Saikhom Mirabai Chanu 49 kg Bindyarani Devi 55 kg Popy Hazarika 59 kg Harjinder Kaur 71 kg Punam Yadav 76 kg Bannur Natesh Usha 87 kg Purnima Pandey +87 kg

Wrestling (6 - men and 6 - women) Men Wrestler Weight Category Ravi Kumar Dahiya 57 kg Bajrang Punia 65 kg Naveen 74 kg Deepak Punia 86 kg Deepak 97 kg Mohit Dahiya 125 kg
Women Wrestler Weight Category Pooja Gehlot 50 kg Vinesh Phogat 53 kg Anshu Malik 57 kg Sakshi Malik 62 kg Divya Kakran 68 kg Pooka Sihag 76 kg

[Omkara]

One should dump these games. Creates champions who in real life are not.

[sameerph]

I do not think commonwealth games are useless in terms of competiton. Maybe in some sports like wrestling, shooting (which is not there now), weightlifting, badminton to an extent.

But, there are sports where the competition is better than Asian Games like Athletics, boxing, hockey.

So, I would be watching with interest our performances in those.

[arjun2761]

Aside from the geopolitics of being considered a commonwealth of former British ruled countries (although notably without the USA), having another regional competition (in addition to the Asian games) is a plus for India and Indian athletes for at least two reasons. First, it provides a lower level of competition which is better for the vast majority of our athletes that aren't world class. Second, our domestic sports infrastructure, training, and competition for most sports (perhaps outside of cricket) is very poor, so having another regional competition for our athletes to train for and compete against much better competition is also a good thing for them.

Interestingly, Neeraj Chopra is now a world class athlete, so missing the CWG isn't a big deal for him as I expect that he will compete in several other high level meets such as the Diamond Leagues, World Championship etc. before the next Olympics.

Now, for the USA, where their athletes, competition, and infrastructure are world class, there isn't much point in competing in the CWG and in fact the Pan-American games is also somewhat irrelevant for the USA.

[Omkara]

I do not think commonwealth games are useless in terms of competiton. Maybe in some sports like wrestling, shooting (which is not there now), weightlifting, badminton to an extent.

But, there are sports where the competition is better than Asian Games like Athletics, boxing, hockey.

So, I would be watching with interest our performances in those.

Presence of Australia, England and carribbean countries help. So maybe useful to track certain games.

I was referring to many champions of Indian sports who hail their best achievement as a medal in commonwealth games. We need to increase our level, and not create heroes in here. As a stepping stone or a competition to understand who really have potential, the games might help.

[sameerph]

True, just looking sport wise,

Weightlifing- CWG countries won only had 3 medals in Tokyo out of 42 - 1 each from Canada, India and England. So, we have a great chance to pick a lot of medals and should top the medal tally I think.
Wrestling- CWG countries only 3 medals out of 72 at Tokyo- 2 for India and 1 for Nigeria - We should dominate this
Badminton -- 2 out of 15 medals for CWG countries at Tokyo- 1 each for India and Malaysia- race will be between these 2 for medals.
Gymnastics- 4 out of 55 medals for CQG countries at Tokyo- GBR 3 and Canada 1- our standards are low. So, not likely to do well even against such low competition.
Table Tennis- No CWG country won a medal out of 15 medals at Tokyo- We can be dominant in this.
Judo- 3 out of 60 medals for CWG- but our standard is low, so not much chance of medals for us I guess.

Now, for the sports where the standard is pretty high –
Athletics- CWG countries won 42 out of 144 medals – almost 30%
Boxing- CWG countries won 11 out of 52 – more than 20%
Swimming - CWG countries won 37 out of 111- More than 30% - highest standard
Hockey- 3 out of 6 medals for CWG at Tokyo- 50%
So, our good performances in these 4 sports should be lauded more. In other sports, one should looks at individual high level performances which are of Olympic standard.
And there are other sports such squash, womens cricket etc which are not in Olympics, so any medal for them is good.

It starts from tomorrow ( opening ceremony today). Lets hope for the best.

[prasen9]

I was referring to many champions of Indian sports who hail their best achievement as a medal in commonwealth games. We need to increase our level, and not create heroes in here. As a stepping stone or a competition to understand who really have potential, the games might help.

It is incredibly hard to win a national championship in India. Or for that matter any half decent country. Or for that matter the table tennis championship in Bengal. I have seen the level of competition in junior athletics here (in the U.S.) and it is insane the number of hours of training, etc. even the #10 in a (big) country has to put in.

We need to laud these athletes and create heroes of them but at the right proportion. They are not world beaters. They are just commonwealth games winners. And, we value them as winners in games where the glory should be less than that of Asian Games but more than our National Games or SAAF Games, etc.

If you only give glory to the absolute best and nothing to everyone, you get what we have in tennis. The absolute top are superbly compensated and the rest are struggling to make ends meet. I do not think that extreme inequality in money is right. Ditto about prestige. I will celebrate each medal at the CG but valuing it accurately based on the competition, timing/performance achieved, etc.

[rajitghosh]

Once you include sports like cycling and fencing the equation changes. Commonwealth Games is of really high standard.
Even in badminton Malaysia, Singapore and England are pretty strong in their own right. Remember last time Srikanth lost to the legendary LCW and the current world champion is from Singapore.
In hockey we have Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Malaysia, England, Canada and South Africa. Certainly a field better than the Asiad.

[arjun2761]

Swimming is also of a high standard at the CWG. Noticed that we have Ronaldo and David Beckham cycling for us!

[Sin Hombre]

There are two different things.

CWG is a relic of the piddly island, who also uses it to promote its own interests. This includes removing shooting or promoting mountain biking as an example. By staying in these games, we acquiesce to these changes which are very detrimental to us.


Now the other point which may or may not be what Omkara was trying to make but there are enough sports in the CWG which are of a low standard. With the Asian games, even with sports which are not world class, it is almost always because of genetic reasons. Asians of all races haven't shown that they can be world class in sprints for example. Winning an Asian games gold is still the pinnacle achievement for an Indian in those events.

[srini]

Be it Olympics or Common (looted) wealth games, the proportion of medals has always been heavily biased for the events that favor developed/rich nations. If some developing nation is seen to be picking up more medals than what is perceived to be deserving then the "Masters" would meet and make some hasty decisions that would put the "Slaves" at their rightful place in the medal tally

The heavy crop of medals set aside in C(L)WG for aquatics (64), Cycling (26) at the expense of Shooting (0 medals) and wrestling (12) even in comparison to Olympics (not that Olympics choice of medal proportions is fair) is noteworthy. Piddly islanders managing to bring back their Imperial game of Cricket into medal reckoning is a feat their proud ancestors would have deemed worthy to have Knighted!

Leaving aside my rant, what is the medal placing we will be looking at in these games ? We moved from highest placing of 2nd in 2010 to 5th in 2014 and 3rd in 2018 games. Now with shooting not in reckoning will we be staring up at higher placed wales, scotland etc in 2022 edition?

[Atithee]

The number of aquatics medals in any of these international events is so lop sided. It’s one event where multiple gold are almost a joke. It’s like having a medal for batting, bowling, catching, fielding, max sixes, etc. in cricket to just pad the medal count of select countries. But, no, there is ONE gold in football, hockey, etc., after winning 4-6 matches—an incredible feat compared to swimming several short distances for a gold in each race.