Indian para-athletics created history at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026. Soman Rana won the gold medal in the men’s F57 shot put, while Shubham Juyal won the silver, giving India its first gold medal and double podium finish in the event. Both Indian athletes performed brilliantly in the final in Glasgow, achieving a historic milestone for the country.
43-year-old Soman Rana won the gold medal with a best throw of 13.40 meters in his fourth attempt. Shubham Juyal won the silver medal with a throw of 13.28 meters. This is the first time in Commonwealth Games history that India has won gold and also secured the first and second positions in the men’s F57 shot put event.
Who is Soman Rana?
Soman Rana is a Havildar in the Indian Army. His sports career began with boxing, where he placed fifth at the 2005 National Boxing Championships. In December 2006, while serving with the Gorkha Rifles on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, he lost one of his legs in a landmine explosion. This accident changed his life completely, but he never gave up.
During his treatment and rehabilitation at the Artificial Limb Centre in Pune, he made para-athletics his new goal. After joining the Army’s Paralympic Node in 2017, he worked tirelessly and represented India at the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympics. He also won a silver medal at the Asian Para Games 2022 and a bronze medal at the World Para Athletics Championships 2025.
Shubham Juyal also showed amazing courage
Shubham Juyal, a resident of Roorkee Niwali in Uttarakhand, dreamed of becoming an army officer. He even passed the written exam for the Army Cadet College in 2022, but that same year, his leg was amputated in a road accident. He then decided to pursue a career in para-sports. While undergoing treatment at the Artificial Limb Centre in Pune, he began training at the Army’s Paralympic Node and soon joined the ranks of the country’s emerging para-shot put athletes.