Australia Tops Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games with 70 Gold Medals

*Yusuf Alli Excited by Team Nigeria’s seventh place finish as Africa’s top team

Duro Ikhazuagbe in Glasgow

The 2026 Commonwealth Games ended last night in Glasgow, Scotland with Team Nigeria ending the former British Empire Games seventh on the final medals table with 10 gold, seven silver and seven bronze medals.

Australia emerged the overall winner with 70 gold, 45 silver and 56 bronze to have a total of 171 medals while England with 29 gold, 45 silver and 36 bronze medals settled as runners up. Canada with 19 gold, 20 silver and 23 bronze medals finished third on the overall final medals table.

Some 3,000 athletes from 74 nations won 1,168 medals – 141 in Para events – over 10 sports.  In all, 41 nations won at least one medal.

Veteran Team Nigeria Para Powerlifter, Folashade Oluwafemiayo, broke a world record, bench pressing 175kg, to win the Women’s Heavyweight title. There were 47 gold medals across Para sport. Thomas Young’s T38 100m gold and Sophie Hahn were stars and India’s Para squad made history, winning seven medals – their best-ever Commonwealth haul.

Team Nigeria’s performance was one gold medal less than the 11 won by the country at the 2022 edition that was Nigeria’s best performance ever.

Speaking about Team Nigeria’s outing here, Chairman of Elite Athletes Development and Podium Board, Yusuf Alli, described the performance as a refreshing development for Nigeria.

“Our athletes have done well here at Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. If you compare our performance here against past outing with more sports  like wrestling, table tennis and many others where Team Nigeria have more strength, you will appreciate the medals that we won from few sports events,” observed the former Team Nigeria captain whose 8.27m national long jump record has endured over three decades.

Alli also believe that the good preparation started in Nigeria before moving the camp to Aberdeen for final skill honing played a large role in making the 23 medals won at Glasgow 2026 possible.

“I can’t remember the last time Nigerian athletes have enjoyed the kind of welfare they have received under this National Sports Commission led by Chairman Malam Shehu Dikko and Director General Hon. Bukola Olopade. They matched action with words, paying the athletes massive win bonuses at competition venues in addition to allowances and paid before competitions began,” stressed the Elite Athletes and Podium Performance chairman.

Most exciting to track & field aficionados, is the manner of the spread of medals won by Nigeria evenly between the male and female athletes.

Unlike in the past when the women folks dominated the medals table leaving the male athletes to play second fiddle, there was a revival sort. For the first time in over three decades, the male ended the jinx.

Leading the male athletes revival was Team Nigeria Captain, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi. He finally exorcised the spirit of playing second fiddle to become the top man of the Commonwealth Games’ Men’s Shot Put event as he won the gold medal in his third attempt.

His championship-winning throw of 21.07m ensured that he leapfrogged defending champion from the Birmingham Games four years ago, New Zealand’s Tom Walsh (21.03m), to claim the gold medal.

While the gold medal was Team Nigeria’s eighth in Glasgow, it was Enekwechi’s first in three editions. It was a perfect compensation for the silver he got in Gold Coast, Australia in 2018 and fourth place finish in Birmingham in 2022.

Secondly, Nathaniel Ezekiel claimed Nigeria’s first-ever gold medal in track & field’s men’s 400m hurdles with a 48.47secs, leaving England’s Jake Minsull (48.99) and Assinine Wilson (49.22) of Jamaica for the silver and bronze respectively. Another gold medal performance was by Samuel Ogazi who ran a blazing 44.17sec to win the men’s 400m. The University of Alabama graduate had earlier in the outdoor season erased Innocent Egbunike’s long-standing 400m record to set the stage for this feat here in Glasgow.

Udodi Onwuzurike also put the male athletes on the medals table as he claimed a precious silver medal for Team Nigeria with a season’s best performance of 20.09secs behind South Africa’s Sinesipho Dambile (19.96) while Jamaica’s Christopher Taylor (20.11) settled for the bronze.

Against all expectations, star-boy, Kanyisola Ajayi, missed the opportunity to win gold for Team Nigeria despite the fact that he had the best time of 9.84secs leading time to the Games by all the male sprinters. There was excitement in Team Nigeria’s camp that finally, Ajayi was going to end elevate the country to the gold medal, 20 years after Olusoji Fasuba won the silver medal at the 2006 edition in Melbourne, Australia. There were no doubts that it was impossible thing for Ajayi to achieve. After all, he had twice got the better of reigning world champion, Oblique Seville in the Diamond League and the Classic in Eugene, USA. But a disappointing 9.90secs return in the final by the 21-year-old Nigerian could only earn him country a bronze medal. It was a far cry from Fasuba’s silver in Melbourne but not bad altogether when compared with the no-show of past editions.

The revival of the male athletes appears to have made up for Nigerian track aficionados to take cognizance of Tobi Amusan’s failure to grab a third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal in the 100m hurdles event.

As world record holder in the women’s barrier sprint event at 12.12secs, it was unthinkable that Amusan would miss the gold and silver only to settle for the bronze on a wet evening at the Scotstoun Stadium track here. Her gold medal was part of the projected seven in track & field here. But ‘Tobi Express’ had a bad day in the office, occasioned by poor start. Athletics Federation of Nigeria officials however hinted after the race that Amusan competed in the event battling a pain in the toe.

If Amusan failed to deliver like Team Nigeria’s ladies have done in the past, there is however a new wind of younger generation athletes, emerging to take over from the ageing ones.

Most exciting is the feat of 19-year-old Jessica Oji in the women’s shot put where she won a historic silver medal. Her silver was Nigeria’s first medal in the event in the last two decades. She claimed it with 17.3m. Now, the former junior champion is looking forward to doing better than any former shot put female athlete as Nigeria will begin preparation for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Also worth talking about is another young athlete, Ella Onojuvwevwo, who  also added a bronze medal to Team Nigeria’s collection here in Glasgow.  Her strong 51.00 seconds has set her apart as Nigeria’s leading female quarter-miler, chasing the legacies of national record holder, Falilat Ogunkoya’s 49.10 second. Jamaican Dejanea Oakley (50.21) settled for the silver while Barbados’ Sada Williams (50.99) won the bronze.

Worth commending also is the performance of the country’s para-power-lifters as well as the weightlifters. Folashade Oluwafemiayo, Esther Nworgu, Idris Rilwan, Onome Didih, Edidiong Umoafia and Rafiatu Lawal all proved their worth, winning gold medals in the para powerlifting and weightlifting events to make Nigeria the topmost team from the African continent.