India’s sporting calendar in the past year has produced a steady and widening stream of achievements. Across disciplines as varied as shooting, taekwondo, chess, and mixed martial arts, a new generation of Indian athletes is competing and winning at the highest continental and global levels.
Esha Singh
At 21, Esha Singh from Jharkhand is already one of the most decorated pistol shooters of her generation. She became the youngest national champion in the 10m air pistol event at the age of 13 and is a recipient of the Arjuna Award, India’s second-highest sporting honour. A Paris 2024 Olympian and triple world championship medallist, she has consistently raised her own standards with each passing season.
In February 2026, Esha delivered a commanding performance at the 2nd Asian Rifle and Pistol Championship held in New Delhi. She claimed the gold medal in the women’s 10m air pistol individual event with a final score of 239.8, finishing ahead of Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Yen-Ching (235.4), who took silver.
Three months later, Esha raised the bar still further at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol 2026 in Munich, Germany. Competing in the women’s 25m pistol final on 27 May 2026 against a field that included reigning Olympic champion Yang Ji-in of South Korea, Esha scored 43 out of 50 in the final, setting a new world record at both senior and junior levels. This secured Esha a direct qualification spot for the ISSF World Cup Final in Rome in December 2026.
Kashish Malik
Kashish Malik is a Delhi-based taekwondo athlete competing in the women’s 57kg category. Born on 4 July 2000, she took up the sport at the age of 14. She is the first Indian to secure medals in World Taekwondo’s G-1 and G-2 ranked tournaments, reached the quarter-finals of the 57kg event at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta — the best finish by an Indian taekwondo athlete at an Asian Games at the time — and won gold at the South Asian Games 2019 in Kathmandu, Nepal, becoming the youngest Indian to win gold at those games.
In May 2026, she competed at the 27th Asian Taekwondo Championships held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (21–24 May). She returned with a bronze medal in her weight category, marking her first continental podium finish in senior competition and placing her firmly on the map of Indian combat sports.
Beyond the medal itself, the championship conferred on Malik the prestigious Best Fighting Spirit Award — a recognition voted on by the technical officials for the quality and tenacity of her bouts throughout the tournament.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, known widely as Pragg, is a grandmaster from Chennai who became the second-youngest grandmaster in history in 2018, achieving the title at the age of 12. He first drew global attention in 2023 when he reached the final of the FIDE World Cup in Baku, becoming the first Indian to reach the World Cup final since Viswanathan Anand in 2002.
In February 2025, he won the prestigious Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. It is one of the strongest annual classical chess tournaments in the world.
The Tata Steel win was among several strong results that earned Pragg the FIDE Circuit 2025 title, which automatically qualified him for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament — the final stage before a World Championship match. He competed in the 2026 Candidates, placing him among the eight strongest players in the world.
India’s MMA Contingent at the 4th AMMA Championship
At the 4th Asian Mixed Martial Arts (AMMA) Championship 2026, held in Uzbekistan from 22–24 May 2026, which also served as a qualifier for the 6th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Riyadh and the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya.
Nayan Mandlik won the silver medal, while Suchika Tariyal, Pooja Devi, and Pravin Gupta each secured bronze medals in their respective categories. With mixed martial arts officially included in the 2026 Asian Games by the Olympic Council of Asia, the championship carried heightened significance. India’s four-medal tally at the qualifier signals a growing competitive depth in a sport that has only recently entered the mainstream of Indian international athletics.
The achievements outlined above are part of a broader trend. In early 2026 alone, India won 16 medals at the Asian Boxing Championships in Ulaanbaatar, including five gold; 17 medals at the Asian Wrestling Championships; and 10 medals at the Asian Weightlifting Championships hosted in Gandhinagar.
