The 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games have already begun in Scotland and India has sent 126 members to the historic event including star athletes like Lovlina Borgohain, Neeraj Chopra, Mirabai Chanu.
It would be a crime to not recall the coaches who have guided these athletes to their historic medals and now hopes pinning down to these coaches and athletes, it is time to revisit the teachers who are the only hopes to India’s higher medal count in the 2026 edition of the Commonwealth tournament.
Top 3 Indian coaches behind medal holes 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games
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Vijay Sharma (Weightlifting)
All the hopes of India securing medals in Weightlifting have been rested on the weightlifting coach Vijay Sharma. Dronacharya award winner, Sharma has travelled with the Indian weightlifting team to the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. He is training Mirabai Chanu along with 10 other weightlifting athletes.
The national coach has led the Indian weightlifting team to 10 medals in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and is now eyeing 8-10 medals in 2026 with the contingent of 11 players along with Chanu. Along with the 2022 and 2018 Commonwealth Games reigning Champion Chanu, Sharma has also taken aboard Bindyarani Devi who secured silver medal at the 2022 CWG and Harjinder Kaur who won Bronze medal in 2022 in Birmingham.
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Santiago Nieva (Boxing)
Already headlining as the High-Performance Director (2017-2022) at BFI, Santiago Nieva returned as the head coach of the Indian boxing team in 2025. He had brought laurels to the country by securing India’s first ever highest athlete participation at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. During his stint as the director, Nieva got home 7 medals in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games where every male boxer returned home with a medal.
Under his return as the head coach in 2025, Lovlina Borgohain has already secured her direct bye to the semi final in the 2026 Commonwealth Games. He has set a high expectation roster to comfortably surpass the three medals tally in the 2022 Birmingham edition.
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Radhakrishnan Nair (Athletics)
As the Chief coach of Indian Athletics Federation (AFI), Radhakrishnan Nair has travelled to Glasgow with a 32 members contingent for athletics along with Neeraj Chopra whose coach, Jaiveer Chaudhary, was omitted from the official Sports Ministry contingent for the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
As the Deputy Chief National coach in 2018 CWG, Nair secured 3 medals for the Indian contingent including Neeraj Chopra’s historic javelin gold and as the Chief National coach, Nair guided the athletes to 8 medals comprising 1 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze which also included Edhinose Paul’s gold medal in Men's triple jump.
