India finished fourth at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with 85 medals: 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze. Only China, Japan and South Korea finished higher. India sent 496 athletes across 36 sports, with shooter Manu Bhaker and kabaddi player Pawan Sehrawat as flag bearers.
The 21 golds are India’s second-highest at an Asian Games, behind the 28 won at Hangzhou 2023. The full table is on our Asian Games 2026 medal tally page.
India’s gold medals by sport
| Sport | Golds | Winners |
|---|---|---|
| Archery | 5 | Women’s compound team; mixed compound team; men’s compound team; women’s recurve team; Kumkum Mohod (women’s individual recurve) |
| Boxing | 3 | Lovlina Borgohain (women’s 75 kg); Parveen Hooda (women’s 65 kg); Ankush Panghal (men’s 80 kg) |
| Shooting | 3 | Kamaljeet and Suruchi Singh (10m air pistol mixed team); Neeru Dhanda (women’s trap); trap mixed team |
| Cricket | 2 | Women’s team; men’s team |
| Hockey | 2 | Women’s team; men’s team |
| Kabaddi | 2 | Women’s team; men’s team |
| Wrestling | 2 | Including Sujeet Kalkal (men’s freestyle 65 kg) |
| Athletics | 1 | Women’s 4x400m relay (Kiran Pahal, Poovamma Machettira, Prachi Choudhary, Vithya Ramraj) |
| Golf | 1 | Pranavi Urs (women’s individual) |
Archery: India’s best sport
Archery delivered 9 medals: 5 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze. India swept three compound team golds on one day, then added the women’s recurve team title. On the final weekend, 17-year-old Kumkum Mohod from Amravati beat South Korea’s Oh Yejin in a shoot-off to become India’s first individual recurve gold medallist at the Asian Games.
Cricket: two golds, two finals
The women’s team gave India its first gold of the Games, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the final. The men’s team then beat Pakistan by 19 runs in the men’s final, the first time the two sides had met at the Asian Games.
Hockey and kabaddi
Both Indian hockey teams reached the final, the first time that had happened since 1998. The men beat Pakistan 4-3 in the semi-final on their way to gold, and the women’s team also won its final. In kabaddi, India won both the men’s and women’s titles on the same day.
Boxing, wrestling and shooting
Three golds came from Haryana athletes on a single day: Sujeet Kalkal in men’s freestyle wrestling, Ankush Panghal in men’s 80 kg boxing and Parveen Hooda in women’s 65 kg boxing. Lovlina Borgohain added boxing’s third gold at 75 kg. In shooting, Neeru Dhanda won the women’s trap, and India also won the 10m air pistol and trap mixed team events.
Athletics and golf
India’s only athletics gold came in the women’s 4x400m relay. Defending champion Avinash Sable, back from knee surgery, finished fourth in the men’s 3000m steeplechase. Pranavi Urs won the women’s individual golf title on the final weekend.
Esports: no medal from 15 players
Esports was a full medal sport in Aichi-Nagoya, with 11 events held from 23 September to 2 October at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname. India entered 15 players in four events and finished without a medal.
| Event | Indian players | Result |
|---|---|---|
| League of Legends | Akshaj “Kat Bot” Shenoy (captain), Aakash “Infi” Shandilya, Sanindhya “Deadcorporal” Malik, Mihir “Lotus” Ranjan, Ahmed “Nero” Shahid, Rahul “Bob” Bisht | Fourth in group, 0-3 |
| Puyo Puyo Champions | Paritosh | Quarter-final |
| eFootball | Danial Patel, Chinmay Sahoo | Group stage |
| Pokémon UNITE | Adnan Mohammed Badshah (captain), Sai Krishna Nalluri, Reuben Godfrey Fernandes, Rudra Narayan Nayak, Dipjyoti Laxman Nath, Deepkumar Vipulbhai Patel | Group stage |
Paritosh had India’s best run. He beat players from Mongolia and Singapore in the Puyo Puyo group stage before losing 5-0 to South Korea’s Kang Dongshin in the quarter-final. The League of Legends team lost all three group games, including one to a South Korea side featuring Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. In eFootball, Uzbekistan went through ahead of India on goal difference, and the Pokémon UNITE team lost to South Korea and to hosts Japan, who won the gold.
South Korea won the League of Legends gold, sweeping Chinese Taipei 3-0 in the final, and finished with five esports medals. India’s only esports podium at an Asian Games is still Tirth Mehta’s Hearthstone bronze in 2018, when esports was a demonstration event.
KhelGossip’s view: archery’s rise, athletics’ slide
Fourth place and 21 golds is a good Games, India’s second-best gold haul after Hangzhou. But the shape of the medal table tells us more than the total.
Archery was the big winner, with 9 medals and 5 golds, including India’s first individual recurve gold at an Asian Games. A 17-year-old, Kumkum Mohod, beating a South Korean in a shoot-off is the kind of result that changes a sport’s funding and attention. Team sports were just as strong: India won both cricket, both hockey and both kabaddi titles.
Athletics is the worry. India won one athletics gold, in the women’s 4x400m relay, and the defending steeplechase champion, Avinash Sable, finished fourth on his return from knee surgery. For the sport that has carried India at past Asian Games, that is a thin return, and it should be the first question for the federation before the Los Angeles 2028 cycle.
Updated 28 October 2026 with the esports results. Main sources: final-results reports by Khel Now, The Week and UNI.
