10,000m silver: Gulveer Singh, drenched and unbowed, makes CWG history

Gulveer Singh does not panic. Rain fell so hard at Scotstoun Stadium on Tuesday night that it interrupted the women’s high jump and took several runners off their shoes. It gave him every excuse. He didn’t take any of them. Uttar Pradesh’s Naib Subedar, 27, became the first Indian to win a Commonwealth Games medal in the men’s 10,000m, clocking 27:49.79s, his fifth-fastest time over the distance, less than a second behind Australia’s Ky Robinson. David Mullarkey of the Isle of Man took bronze in 27:50.28s. For the first time in the 40-year history of the Commonwealth Games, no African runner stood on the podium. CWG Day 5 Highlights

There is an old truth about distance running: hold on, last out, eventually break. Gulveer had already heard it. He couldn’t live it a year ago.

At last year’s World Championships in Tokyo, in his debut on this stage, Gulveer did what most do in his 4800m race: sat with the pack, drifted when the gaps opened and waited for the kick. The hill never came. He finished ninth in his heat and missed out on the 5000m final, which was far from what training had promised.

Glasgow was different, although the pattern looked similar for a long time, and that was fine.

Gulveer rode fast, finishing second in the 400m and maintaining his place among the leaders in the 4000m. Then the race and the weather started to bite. He slipped to ninth place by 5,500 m. Where there could have been panic, there was none. He held the inside line, saved what he had, and waited. Screengrab from SonyLiv

Between 5,600 m and 6,000 m he moved through the field from ninth place to fifth. It wasn’t a decisive move, not yet. He was a man who took a chance. He dropped again to ninth at 6,800m, climbing to fifth at 7,000m, with the Kenyans and Ugandans still ahead of him and Robinson in the mix. He was fourth in the last kilometer. You could see if you’ve been watching that he’s about to make another push.

The bell rang with Gulveer in third place, a medal all but assured. But medals disappear without a final kick, and he learned that the hard way. And so he pushed on, passing Kenya’s Edwin Kurgat and closing in on Robinson before it was his turn. He missed the gold by less than a second.

“My only strategy was to win a medal,” Gulveer said afterwards.

“My coach told me not to do anything special in the first part of the race. For the first 400 meters or so, I was told to stay behind the leaders and go after them. My coach believes that my finishing speed is very good, so the plan was to stay with the pack and make my move at the end. This strategy worked.”

THE RECORD BREAK CONTINUES THE RUN OF DREAMS

Gulveer Singh on stage on a rainy night in Glasgow (Photo Reuters)

He was characteristically unsentimental about what the medal meant to him personally. “It feels good. The full feeling will probably sink in later, but right now I am happy because I have won a medal for the country. Personal achievements will come later. We are competing for India on this platform, so this medal is for the country.”

It’s worth reflecting on how ordinary this answer will sound to some, and how it underplays a year that was anything but.

2026 has been Gulveer’s best yet. He broke the national record in the half marathon in New York in March. Around the same time in the United States, he ran a personal best of 27:24.18 in the 10,000 m. He set his fastest 5,000 meters in May in Los Angeles. Behind these numbers is the decision made some time ago to move to the high-altitude training base in Colorado Springs, where he is now training under the guidance of American coach Scott Simmons. In that sense, Glasgow was less a surprise than a confirmation.

Of course, Gulveer’s rise didn’t start in Colorado.

Born in the village of Sirsa in Aligarh district, he grew up on village roads and farmland paths, initially training for army recruitment. He joined the Grenadier Regiment in 2018 and the rest was a fairly relentless accumulation of firsts. Bronze in the 5000m at the 2023 Asian Championships. Bronze in the 10,000m at the 2022 Asian Games. Double gold in both events at last year’s Asian Championships in Gumi, making him the continent’s leading distance runner.

He holds national records in 5000m, 10,000m, mile and half marathon, and in 2025 became the first Indian to run a sub-four minute mile and the first to break 60 minutes in a half marathon. Indoors, his 12:59.77s in the 5000m became the first Asian athlete to dip under 13 minutes.

None of this needed to be proven again. But Commonwealth Games medals have a way of asking age-old questions, and on Tuesday, in weather where runners were losing ground and shoes, Gulveer had his own answer.

Kavita Raut remains the only other Indian to win a 10,000m medal at these Games, a bronze at Delhi 2010. Gulveer is now the first Indian to do so, and the patient, then ruthless way he did it suggests he has no intention of being the last.

– The end

Issued by:

Akshay Ramesh

Published on:

Jul 29, 2026 03:03 IST