India’s campaign at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow suffered a major blow on the eve of the opening ceremony as two athletes were withdrawn from the squad.
Judoka Arun Kumar was provisionally suspended and withdrawn from the competition after failing a test conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). Hours after Kumar’s suspension, weightlifter Dilbagh Singh was also sent back from Glasgow. Unlike Kumar, Singh did not fail a drug test, but fell prey to the reduction of athlete slots.
Clause 2.4 of the qualification system reads: “The maximum number of athlete qualification slots allocated to a CGA [Commonwealth Games Association, i.e. participating nation] will be reduced by one (1) if any weightlifting athlete and/or athlete support personnel from that CGA commits an anti-doping rule violation (‘ADRV’). If there are multiple ADRV’s, the maximum number of athlete qualification slots allocated to a CGA will be reduced by the same number as the number of ADRV’s.”
Between June 1, 2025, and July 22, 2026, Indian weightlifting recorded five positive doping cases. Consequently, the national quota was slashed from 16 to 11. However, India sent out a squad of 12 players, so they had to pull someone out.
“We decided to withdraw Dilbagh as he is suffering from a back injury and hasn’t trained at all during the preparatory camp in Birmingham,” said a member of the Indian Weightlifting Federation to The Indian Express.
Indian athletes underwent two rounds of testing before departing for Glasgow, making Kumar’s ADRV particularly unexpected. With traditionally strong sports like shooting, wrestling, and badminton excluded from the Glasgow program due to local cost constraints, India was heavily relying on weightlifting to secure at least half a dozen medals.
Kumar was considered a strong Judo prospect in the 73 kg category, following gold medal finishes at the 2023 Macau Junior Asian Cup and the 2025 Taipei Asian Open, as well as a seventh-place finish at the Tashkent Grand Slam in February earlier this year.
The removals have reduced the Indian athlete contingent from 126 to 124. Because of Commonwealth Games regulations, India is not permitted to name a replacement. Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently stated that the government was planning to criminalise doping after years of India ranking highly in World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reports.
“Till now, only the sportspersons testing positive were punished with suspensions, disqualification or return of medals. That has not helped us eradicate the problem,” Mandaviya said. “We need to target the whole chain and hand out stringent punishments.”