NEW DELHI: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday chairs a day-long review meeting with the heads of national sports federations to dissect India’s performance at the 2026 Asian Games — an 85-medal haul that fell well short of the record 106 the country won at the previous edition. The meeting, described by ministry officials as a no-holds-barred stock-taking, will put federation accountability squarely on the table.
India finished the Games with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals. The tally marks a sharp comedown from the euphoria of the last edition, when the country crossed the hundred-medal mark for the first time and set its sights on becoming a genuine top-four Asian sporting power. Tuesday’s review is expected to ask bluntly: what went wrong, and where did the Rs 700 crore spent on athlete preparation over the last three years go?
Officials said the review will go federation by federation, sport by sport. Each body will be asked to present its assessment of the campaign — which athletes underperformed against their targets, which selections were contested, and what role coaching, foreign exposure and sports science played in the outcomes. The ministry is also expected to audit the elite-athlete funding under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), which channels the bulk of government support to India’s medal hopefuls.
The funding question is the uncomfortable core of the day’s agenda. India has steadily increased its spend on athlete preparation over the past decade, with TOPS, the Annual Calendar for Training and Competition, and direct assistance covering everything from foreign training stints to personal coaches and physiotherapists. A 20-medal slide despite that outlay raises an obvious question about return on investment — and officials acknowledge it cannot be answered with generalities.
Federation governance is likely to face the sharpest scrutiny. Several sports have been dogged by internal disputes, delayed national camps, selection controversies and administrative litigation in the run-up to the Games — disruptions that athletes privately blame for poor results. The ministry has in recent years pushed federations to professionalise, but Tuesday’s meeting may be the moment where patience visibly runs out.
There is also the matter of the sports that carried the tally versus those that collapsed. Athletics and shooting, which delivered the bulk of India’s medals last time, are expected to come under particular examination if their returns dipped. Meanwhile, disciplines that punched above their weight may be held up as case studies in how modest, well-directed funding can outperform sprawling, top-heavy programmes.
Sports economists and former athletes argue that a single bad fortnight should not obscure the longer arc — India remains comfortably ahead of where it was a decade ago. But they also concede that the system leaks: between sanctioned funds and the athlete, administrative friction, delayed disbursals and federation-level politics continue to take their cut. Mandaviya, officials say, wants data on exactly that pipeline.
Whatever conclusions emerge on Tuesday, the review sets the terms for the next funding cycle. With the Olympics cycle already underway, the ministry’s message to federations is expected to be unambiguous: money follows performance and governance, and neither will be taken on faith. The detailed findings of the review are expected to be shared in the coming days.
