Why India's Commonwealth Games 2026 Athletes Chose Amity University Online

When the Commonwealth Games opened in Glasgow on 23 July, fourteen names on Team India's roster carried something in common besides the tricolour on their kit- each one is currently a student at Amity University Online. Nearly 3,000 athletes from 74 nations are competing across ten sports at this edition, and against that scale, fourteen learners from one Indian university on the same national squad is no small thing. Spread across weightlifting, boxing and track cycling, these athletes are proof that a demanding training schedule and a serious academic degree don't have to compete for the same hours in the day. As Amity Online put it in its own message of support for the Games: "Go Beyond. Go for Glory." For these fourteen, that line applies on the mat, in the ring, on the track, and in the classroom.
 

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Weightlifting: A Gold Medal and a Shared Classroom

Weightlifting produced India's best day so far, and it was also the day three Amity Online students made history together. Within a few hours of each other on 26 July, Mirabai Chanu, Rishikanta Singh and M. Raja (Raja Muthupandi) each stepped onto the podium in Glasgow, giving Amity University Online three medals from three different learners on a single day of competition. Amity Online marked the moment with individual tributes to all three, calling it a golden triumph for the university and a proud one for every learner watching from home.

Mirabai Chanu, who studies Sports Psychology at Amity University Online, opened the account with gold in the women's 48kg- her third consecutive Commonwealth title, following wins at Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022. She finished with a Games-record total of 190kg (85kg snatch, 105kg clean and jerk), 22kg clear of the field, a result Amity Online is rightly calling historic. Earlier that same day, Rishikanta Singh, also enrolled in the Sports Psychology programme at Amity Online, took silver in the men's 60kg while reportedly carrying an injury, and M. Raja, known on the results sheet as Muthupandi Raja- added a second silver in the 65kg with a total lift of 286kg. Three medals, three Amity Online learners, one afternoon.

The Amity Online cohort in weightlifting doesn't end there. Lovepreet Singh, a Sports Psychology student, competes in the men's +110kg looking to better his Birmingham 2022 bronze, while Seram Nirupama Devi (86kg) and Martina Devi (+86kg) round out the group. In fact, six of India's eleven-member weightlifting contingent study the same Sports Psychology programme at Amity Online- a fitting fit for a sport won as much on nerve as on strength.
 

Boxing: World Champions and Debutants in the Same Squad

Boxing runs from 24 July to 1 August at Glasgow's SEC Centre, and Amity Online's five representatives sit among the more closely watched names in the draw. Jaismine Lamboria, pursuing her MBA at Amity University Online, arrives as the reigning world champion in the 57kg category, having beaten Poland's Julia Szeremeta for gold at last year's World Championships in Liverpool, and she already has a Commonwealth bronze from 2022 to her name. Arundhati Choudhary, a BA student at Amity Online, is ranked world No. 2 at light-middleweight (70kg).

Sakshi Chaudhary, an MBA student at Amity Online, boxes in the 51kg division, while Kapil Pokhariya, also completing his MBA through Amity Online, represents the men's 90kg category as one of the more seasoned campaigners on the team. Aditya Pratap Yadav, a BA student and a Havildar in the Indian Army, made his Commonwealth Games debut in the men's 65kg after winning gold at the Elite Men's National Championships in January- a journey that started at a boxing hostel in Meerut and ran through the Army ranks before landing him on the Glasgow start list.
 

Cycling: A Velodrome Story Rooted in the Andaman Islands

Track cycling gets underway on 30 July at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, and all three of Amity Online's cyclists are enrolled in the Sports Psychology programme. David Beckham Elkatohchoongo holds the national record for the flying 200m and shares the team sprint record- set alongside Esow Alben and teammate Rojit Singh Yanglem, at 44.187 seconds. This is his second Commonwealth Games after making his debut in Birmingham. His story carries weight beyond the results sheet: born in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he lost his father in the 2004 tsunami and his mother to an illness a decade later, and still built a career that's taken him to the UCI World Cycling Centre's elite training programme in Switzerland.

Rojit Singh Yanglem, part of that record-setting sprint trio, has been part of India's track cycling setup since winning junior world championship gold alongside Ronaldo Laitonjam and Esow Alben, and he returns to Glasgow- a venue where he already holds a national record, in the 250m standing-start time trial, for his second Games. Sekhon Harshveer Singh completes Amity Online's line-up at the velodrome; he actually began his sporting career in speed skating before switching to two wheels, a crossover that's rarer in Indian cycling than most fans realise. Between them, the three are looking to convert years of domestic and Asian-level form into India's first individual track cycling medal at these Games.
 

Flexibility That Actually Works for Athletes

What ties all fourteen together isn't just the Amity Online admissions office- it's a model built for people whose calendars don't look like anyone else's. Training camps in places like Patiala, competition travel to Liverpool or Konya, recovery blocks between qualifiers: a degree that doesn't demand a fixed seat in a fixed classroom is often the only kind that fits around a schedule like that. Recorded lectures and flexible submission windows mean a missed live session because of a bout or a lift doesn't cost a semester. Whether it's an MBA for boxers already thinking about life after the ring, a BA for those still weighing their options, or Sports Psychology for athletes who want their coursework to speak directly to what they do every day on the field, the choice of programme looks deliberate, not incidental, each one maps onto where these athletes are headed once the competing eventually slows down.
 

Conclusion

Fourteen athletes, three sports, one shared institution, and two weeks in Glasgow to add to what's already an unusual kind of resume. Whatever the medal table looks like by 2 August, Amity University Online's learners have already made their point: sport and serious study aren't opposing tracks. Mirabai Chanu, Rishikanta Singh and M. Raja proved it first, on one afternoon in Glasgow, and the rest of the squad is still writing its own chapter.