Commonwealth Games, 2022

[jayakris]

So, 22 golds, 16 silvers and 23 bronze medals for a total of 61 medals. This is compared to 26 golds and 66 medals in 2018 games. If we take out 16 medals and 7 golds from shooting equivalent is 19 golds and 50 medals. From this time if we remove 2 para medals and 1 medal from cricket which was not there last time, we end up with 20 golds and total of 58 medals. Marginal improvement of 1 gold but good improvement of 8 medals in total.

Was shooting the only event of medals for us that is missing from last time to this time?

[arjun2761]

So, 22 golds, 16 silvers and 23 bronze medals for a total of 61 medals. This is compared to 26 golds and 66 medals in 2018 games. If we take out 16 medals and 7 golds from shooting equivalent is 19 golds and 50 medals. From this time if we remove 2 para medals and 1 medal from cricket which was not there last time, we end up with 20 golds and total of 58 medals. Marginal improvement of 1 gold but good improvement of 8 medals in total.

Will try to post sportswise comparison soon.

I think there was also a para bronze. So, the extra medals this year were 2-1-1 leaving us with 20 G and 57 total which as you state is a minor improvement. It will be great to see where we improved and where we didn't.

Also, we moved up the table in the last 3 days with 13 of our 22 golds on those days. In the Olympics as well we shot up on the final day with our only gold and 3 of our 7 medals on that day. Thank god for Mirabai Chanu who gives us a great start in these multi-sport events!

[ornatebrute]

Discounting archery and shooting, we have a better medal and gold medal tally compared to 2010 Delhi CWG as well

[Orang]

My Summary

• We led all countries in wrestling, weight lifting, table tennis and badminton. In boxing, we came second to Ireland, but tied them in total medal count. I am a big optimist about Indian sports progression, but in this case I can only see a decline from this peak (the 5 sport total) next time. Definitely in wrestling.

• In judo, we only got 3 out of 56 medals (with no Golds). I expect a significant improvement next time.

• I also expect a good future for lawn bowls (we only got 2 of 33 medals this time).

• We got 2 out of 15 squash medals this time. Hopefully we can maintain that count with our new female youngsters improving.

• However, the key is athletics (the "soul" of any of these games). What a superb achievement this time. I only expect continued improvements in both track and field, and we have a large supply of youngsters coming up. Hard to imagine we will not get at least a couple of new medals in discuss, shot put, hammer, javelin etc... next time.

My prediction is that in the 2026 CWG, our Athletics medal count will rise from 8 to 12. And from 1 Gold to 3 Golds.

Can we get 1 swimming medal next time?

Will Achanta try to come back one more time at age 44?

[sameerph]

Discounting archery and shooting, we have a better medal and gold medal tally compared to 2010 Delhi CWG as well

Have to remove tennis too from 2010 medal tally. Removing those 3, it would be 20 golds and 59 medals in 2010.
20 golds and 57 medals this time. Very close but big considering we had huge home advantage that time.

[sameerph]

Ok, just realised that Judo too was not there last time, so we need to remove 3 medals from Judo too. So, comparative 20 golds and 54 medals this time against 19 and 50 last time.


Ok, this is sportwise comparison from 2018 to 2022-

Weightlifting- 5 golds, 9 medals in 2018, 3 golds, 10 medals in 2022- 1 more medal, 2 less golds, we dropped couple of expected golds in first day itself- would say slightly lower performance than last time ( Meerabai Chanu repeat gold)

Wrestling- 5 golds, 12 medals in 2018, 6 golds, 12 medals in 2022- So, swept all medals like last time with 1 added gold- Better performance than last time. ( Bajrang and Vinesh repeat golds)

Table Tennis- 3 golds, 8 medals in 2018, 4 golds, 7 medals in 2022- almost same level one can say- ( repeat mens team gold)

Badminton - 2 golds, 6 medals in 2018, 3 golds, 6 medals in 2022- Improvement this time- ( no repeat golds)

Boxing- 3 golds, 9 medals in 2018, 3 golds, 7 medals in 2022- Slightly lower level than 2018 ( no repeat golds)

Athletics- 1 gold, 3 medals in 2018, 1 gold, 8 medals in 2022- big improvement ( no repeat golds)

Squash- 2 silvers in 2018, 2 bronzes in 2022- slightly lower level

Hockey- no medals last time, 1 silver and 1 bronze in 2022- Big improvement

Lawn Bowls - no medals last time, 1 gold, 1 silver this time- Big improvement

So, big improvement in athletics, hockey and lawn bowls, slight improvement in wrestling and badminton, almost same level in table tennis, slightly lower level in weigtlifting, boxing and sqaush

[ornatebrute]

Discounting archery and shooting, we have a better medal and gold medal tally compared to 2010 Delhi CWG as well

Have to remove tennis too from 2010 medal tally. Removing those 3, it would be 20 golds and 59 medals in 2010.
20 golds and 57 medals this time. Very close but big considering we had huge home advantage that time.

We had 4-1-2 G-S-B medals in Greco Roman wrestling back then. You'll have to count them out as well.

[sameerph]

Ok, missed that. In that case, it is +4 G and + 5 medals from 2010 which is big improvement.

[ornatebrute]

Weightlifting dip is okay, I feel. None of these are actual Olympic medal performance barring Chanu (I'm sure many Chinese/Korean/Indonesians are catching up in the background there as well). Jeremy and Achinta have a loooong way to go. Realistic 2028 at best.

Dipika and (her sister's husband) Saurav are squash XD world champs and Dipika-Joshna are squash WD world champs, held just few months ago (I'm not fully aware of the participating nations here). So on paper both these count as major disappointments. Have immense respect for Joshna but at 35 playing all 3 events will leave you with very little stamina and that was evident here at CWG. Dipika is also returning from her post partum hiatus, and didn't look the fittest. Saurav ran into Paul Coll of NZ both in singles and XD SFs and he was in blistering form to be beaten by anybody. Apart from these 3 torchbearers, we seem to be waaay behind in comparison to Kiwis, OZs, English, Malaysians (and ofcourse Egyptians...). Luckily for us the silver lining was the introduction of 14 year old Anahat Singh, youngest member of our CWG contingent, who won a singles and doubles match (with Sunayna Kuruvilla) here. She's being projected as a prodigy with a great future. Not so sure of anybody from the men's side.

Manika Batra returned home medal-less after winning 4 medals from all 4 events in last edition. No podium placement in the women's team was the biggest disappointment, especially becwe have a real good depth of women's players (like Ayhika, Suthirtha, etc) who weren't selected by TTFI. I think that had significant mental effect on her games in singles, WD and XD next week. Not sure why she preferred to partner Diya Chitale instead of Sreeja (somebody in twitter said that there may have been a tiff between the two, and that's not good). XD loss against Malaysians was very bad as it seemed like both Manika and Sathiyan forgot how to use their forehands (they're world no 6, common!). Sreeja Akula was the standout player for me and loved seeing her win the gold in XD after watching her cry when she lost her singles bronze playoff (more hurtful to watch than our hockey women's SF loss).

In boxing, we would have easily won a few more medals if not for those stupid split decisions. Somebody please CHANGE the rules. This is BULLSHIT. I'm okay with players punching eachother till knockout. I'm sure players would be okay with that too. And please STOP the headgear for girls like you did for the guys. It's so uncomfortable and I doubt protects much at all. Major disappointment here has to be madam Lovlina. She was very active on twitter demanding her personal coach and how she lost World championships without that. I'm okay with all that TBH. But as an Olympic bronze medalist and2 time WC bronze medalist you should do bit more than playing good R1. I still believe that the decision was biased and she should have won but somebody of her stature should not have even given the opportunity to make the judges think twice. And then giving post match absurd statements like CWG was not that important and Paris 2024 is my main goal are all meh, sour grapes (Mary Kom also had such attitude, right? I guess it's a required boxing trait to keep yourselves motivated then?). Male boxers could have still done better. Especially the likes of Shiva Thapa. Don't follow the national circuit much to understand how they keep getting selected.

Some more concerns I have are how BAI and TTFI choose players for team events. The national trials system is not okay. Atleast it doesn't convince me. Sumeet Reddy won the XD national with Ashwini Ponappa to get selected here. While he never faced any big opponents in the mixed team event, their Round 1 loss in XD against English pairing was HOPELESS. He was trying to play from the traditional "woman's" position at the net and tried to outsmart the opponents but got schooled every time. It was like he was doing net practice or forgot that net existed? His smashes are not that powerful anymore and has no accuracy at all. He honestly looks malnourished to me. Would have personally selected Tanisha Crasto and Ishan Bhatnagar in the squad even though they lost against Sumit/Ashwini in the trials final. Would be a good exposure for the youngsters as a medal was honestly never expected in XD. I feel very bad for Ashwini and I don't understand why she continues to play with him even on the tour. (I feel bad that she has to play WD with Sumeet's wife Sikki Reddy as well, but atleast (lazy) Sikki impresses with her net skills in patches). Not sure how long Ashwini and Saina will continue but the youngsters still seem to be waaay behind them in quality. Teresa/Gayathri won bronze. But I'm not convinced that Gayatri is the best partner for Treesa either. Need to really up our doubles strength in all categories and I don't see Mathias Boe doing that ATM.

Sorry for a long post/rant.

[prasen9]

Thanks for the comments.

[jayakris]

Sorry for a long post/rant.

Are you kidding? That rant was great!!

And thanks Sameer for the analysis numbers above. The comparison with Delhi is very good. Even without home advantage, for us to get that much ahead of the Delhi count in these events, is notable improvement. We are getting better. At our own pace. No longer the "laughing stock 1.4 billion".

[jayakris]

So, who is the find of this Commonwealth games? That young name we didn't know much about, that is a real medal contender down the line in Asiad and Olympics after some improvement? Sagar in boxing? Is Sreeja one? (The Malayali triple jumpers were known to me and I am not very sure if they will improve a whole lot more; maybe one of them will?)

[Orang]

Just saw the Lakshya Sen replay badminton highlights of the final set and it was superb. The guy Sen beat will probably soon become a World top 10 player. Sen himself is very impressive and is the clear Indian male number 1 now.

Anyone know where Sen threw his racket at the end? Seemed like it went into the crowd?

[indiansportsfan]

Neetu in women's 48kg boxing weight class was the find of the Games to me; however since her weight class is not an Olympic event, so not sure if she can be a medal hopeful if she moves up. The problem is that Nikhat Zareen, who is our best boxer, is already in that weight class, so maybe both boxers should move up.
Sreeja was also impressive, but overall it was our older generation (Achanta, Chanu, Dahiya/Bajrang/Sakshi/Deepak/Vinesh, Phangal) that brought the bulk of the Golds. The most promising youngsters in these games were Lakshya, Satwik/Chirag and Eldhose Paul and we can expect good things from them in the future as well.

[arjun2761]

Just saw the Lakshya Sen replay badminton highlights of the final set and it was superb. The guy Sen beat will probably soon become a World top 10 player. Sen himself is very impressive and is the clear Indian male number 1 now.

Anyone know where Sen threw his racket at the end? Seemed like it went into the crowd?

He is currently world #9, so your prediction has happened well before you made it.