Top five oldest Indian athletes to win medal at Commonwealth Games

Sunil Bahadur is India’s oldest Commonwealth Games medallist.

Young talents have consistently won the majority of medals for India at the Commonwealth Games, and this trend has continued over the last few editions. Hence, it’s always a pleasant surprise when the country’s oldest medal-winning moments all trace back to a sport nobody really talks about.

Lawn bowls is not a discipline built for explosive athleticism. It rewards patience, touch, and decades of muscle memory, which is exactly why a group of Indian bowlers in their 40s walked away from Birmingham 2022 with medals that younger athletes in flashier sports couldn’t manage.

What makes this list interesting isn’t just the ages themselves; it’s the story hiding underneath them as some athletes are forced to wait for years, or sometimes over a decade, to finally triumph at a multi-sports event such as the Commonwealth Games.

In this article, we take a look at the top five oldest Indian athletes to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games.

Oldest Indian athletes to win a medal at CWG

5. Achanta Sharath Kamal (40 years, 27 days)

Sharath Kamal is hailed as India’s greatest ever table tennis player, and his Commonwealth Games record justifies his credentials. At Birmingham 2022, the 40-year-old enjoyed a stellar campaign, winning four medals, including three gold and one silver.

He kicked off his golden run by leading the Indian men’s table tennis squad to a gold medal victory and then paired up with youngster Sreeja Akula to capture the mixed doubles gold.

In the men’s doubles category, he won a silver medal alongside Gnanasekaran Sathiyan, thereby demonstrating remarkable consistency and endurance.

4. Pinki Singh (41 years, 11 months, 19 days)

Pinky Singh used to teach Physical Education at a school in Delhi, and it turns out that job quietly shaped India’s bowls future in a way nobody could have planned.

She bowled second in the women’s fours line-up that beat South Africa 17-10 for gold, and at 41 she had represented India at four previous Commonwealth Games without ever getting her hands on a medal until Birmingham. The victory made history as India won its first-ever Commonwealth Games medal in lawn bowls.

3. Lovely Choubey (41 years, 11 months, 30 days)

Lovely Choubey’s path to a lawn bowls medal is one of the more unlikely stories in Indian sport as she started as a 100m sprinter before switching disciplines and eventually became a police constable in Jharkhand alongside her sporting career.

In Birmingham 2022, she bowled lead for India’s women’s fours team, and the group went on to shatter records.

The final against South Africa was tense early on, as India led 8-2 before the South Africans clawed level and even edged ahead 10-8 at one stage, but Choubey’s team steadied and eventually closed it out 17-10.

2. Dinesh Kumar (45 years, 1 month, 21 days)

Dinesh Kumar’s story bears a striking resemblance to that of his teammate Bahadur, and this is no coincidence, as both have been part of India’s bowls setup since 2010.

Kumar played skip for the men’s fours team in Birmingham, which is the position that plays last in each end and effectively captains the rink, reading the shots and calling the strategy.

He had come agonisingly close before in 2014 when his team topped their qualifying section only to lose the bronze play-off to Australia, and in 2018 they won their section again but bowed out to Wales in the quarter-finals.

In the 2022 edition, Kumar wasn’t just playing for a medal; he was playing to close out a story that had gone unfinished twice already. The team’s route to the final included that gritty one-point win over England, and even though Northern Ireland ran away with the gold medal match, silver as skip of the side gave Kumar something both his previous campaigns had denied him.

1. Sunil Bahadur (45 years, 8 months, 22 days)

A sub-inspector with the Jharkhand police by day, Sunil Bahadur had already been to three Commonwealth Games and walked away empty-handed every single time.

He was the lead bowler for India’s men’s fours quartet in Birmingham, being the guy who rolls first in each end and lays the foundation for his teammates to build on.

At 45, most athletes have long since hung up their kit, but bowls doesn’t work that way, as touch and reading the green matter more than raw athleticism. His team beat hosts England 13-12 in a nervy semi-final to guarantee at least a silver, before running into a red-hot Northern Ireland side in the final.

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