PANAJI
During the last three editions of the National Games held in Gujarat (2022), Goa (2023) and Uttarakhand (2025), Goa won 5, 92 and 10 medals respectively. These numbers show huge inconsistencies in the State’s performance.
During the 2022 National Games held in Gujarat, an 81-member Goan contingent took part in 13 disciplines - athletics, badminton, beach volleyball, boxing, cycling, football (women), gymnastics, judo, kabaddi, mallakhamb, swimming triathlon and wushu.
But, the State managed to win just five medals - a bronze each in beach volleyball, boxing, gymnastics, mallakhamb and swimming to finish in 30th position, just above Bihar (two bronze) and bottom-placed Sikkim, which won one bronze medal.
In fact, it was Goa’s worst-ever showing at the National Games in the last three decades wherein it failed to win even a single gold for the first time since 1994. This was an entirely Goan squad without any outstation players.
However, during the 2023 National Games held in Goa, an 895-member Goan contingent went on to win a record number of 92 medals (27 gold, 27 silver and 38 bronze) to finish ninth overall in the medal tally, its best-ever showing in the history of National Games.
The performance helped Goa finish ahead of bigger States like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Assam.
Goa won medals in 16 disciplines - athletics, billiards and snooker, beach soccer, boxing, modern pentathlon, netball, pencak silat, sepak takraw, sqay martial arts, squash, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting, wushu, yachting and yogasana.
Goa’s medal tally was entirely misleading as the majority of the medals came from Indigenous sports which are not part of the Olympic programme. They are neither part of the Olympics nor the Asian Games. Also, most of the medals were won with the support of ‘outstation’ players.
In the newly-introduced sports like sqay martial arts (27) and pencak silat (16), which are non-Olympics sports, Goa won 43 medals. In sepak takraw, Goa won six of the eight gold medals as the entire Goan squad consisted of top athletes from the northeast.
Boxing had eight medalists, all outsiders, while the lone medalists in weightlifting and athletics were also outstation athletes. In fact, only about thirty per cent of the total medals won by Goa were by the ‘sons and daughters’ of the State. The medals won by them were in disciplines such as modern pentathlon (8), swimming (6), yachting (4), taekwondo (3), yogasana (2), billiards and snooker (2), wushu (1), squash (1), beach soccer (1) and netball (1).
Going by Goa’s performance during the last edition, a lot was expected this time around in Uttarakhand. However, the 150-member Goan contingent managed to win just 10 medals in five disciplines - modern pentathlon, squash, yogasana, beach volleyball and kallariyapayattu even though the state had participated in 19 disciplines.
The biggest failures of not winning any medals were in football, swimming, taekwondo, wushu and boxing. Goa did not participate in yachting and netball wherein it had won medals during the last edition while billiards and snooker and beach soccer, the two medal-winning sports for Goa in 2023, were not part of the Uttarakhand Games.
