2026 is the mega year of Indian sports: From 3 World Cups, Commonwealth Games to Olympic qualification… this time we will see full on action.

New Delhi. The year 2026 is going to be an exciting and challenging year for Indian sports with world titles at stake in various sports and a new season of Olympic qualification starting which will provide a chance to book tickets to the Los Angeles Games 2028. India’s new and old players are getting ready for the challenges of the next year, so let’s take a look at the sports calendar for the new year.

(January February March)

The first quarter of the year will be dedicated to cricket as the country’s favorite sport has three World Cups this year. It will begin with the 50-over Under-19 World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia from January 15 to February 6, where rising young stars like Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre will be closely watched. A day after the final of this age group, the senior men’s team will defend the title in the T20 World Cup to be hosted by India and Sri Lanka from February 7 to March 8. Australian Open will be held from January 12 to February 1 but India’s challenge is not effective. The Badminton All England Championship will start from March 3 in which PV Sindhu and other Indian players will want to recover from the failure of 2025. There is good news for Indian football fans that after a long time, the Indian team will be seen playing in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup starting from March 1 in Australia.

(April May June)

The Candidates Chess Tournament will be played in Cyprus from late March to April to determine the challengers for the World Championship title. Currently India’s D Gukesh is the world champion. Asian Boxing Championship will be played in Mongolia. Both the tournaments will start from March 28 in which India’s R Praggnananda will participate in the open category and R Vaishali, Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh will participate in the women’s category. The chess tournament will continue till April 16 and the boxing tournament will end on April 11. The Asian Weightlifting Championship will be played in Ahmedabad from April 1 to 10. After this, Thomas and Uber Cup badminton will be played from April 24 to May 3. A few days later, the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championship Finals will run in London from April 28 to May 10, for which the Indian women’s and men’s teams have qualified. There will be the Women’s T20 World Cup in June in which Harmanpreet Kaur’s team would like to repeat the success of the ODI World Cup in 2025. The athletics season will begin in May with the Diamond League with the focus on javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra. French Open will be played in May and Wimbledon in June. After this, FIFA World Cup football will be organized jointly in America, Mexico and Canada.

(July, August, September)

The Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow from July 23 to August 2, in which India’s representation will be seen mainly in athletics, boxing and weightlifting. Sports like shooting, wrestling and hockey have been removed from the roster to cut budget. After these games, the World Badminton Championship is to be held in Delhi from 17th August. Hockey World Cup will start from August 14 in Netherlands and Belgium. The Indian men’s team has already booked its ticket to the World Cup by winning the Asia Cup, while the women’s team will play the qualifiers in Hyderabad in March. Meanwhile, the World Athletics Subcontinental Tour silver level tournament will be held in Bhubaneswar from August 22. The Asian Games will be held in Nagoya, Japan from September 19 to October 4. In this, the team that wins gold in hockey will get the ticket for Los Angeles Olympics 2028 while there will be quota places in shooting also. The Diamond League final in athletics will be held in Brussels from September 4 to 5. The 46th session of the Chess Olympiad will be played in Tashkent in September.

(October, November, December)

World Wrestling Championship will be held in Bahrain from October 24. After this, the Weightlifting World Championship will be played from October 27 to November 8. ISSF World Championship will be held in Doha from November 1. There will be a World Chess Championship in December, the date and venue of which has not been decided yet.