CWG 2026: Fourth-place curse strikes as Ashok Malik misses powerlifting medal
The dreaded fourth-place finish, a recurring heartbreak that has famously haunted Indian sport at the Olympic Games, reappeared on Friday at the 2026 Commonwealth Games. In the men’s lightweight para powerlifting event at the SEC Armadillo, Indian powerlifter Ashok Malik produced a personal-best display, only to agonisingly finish just outside the medal positions. CWG Day 2 Updates
For Indian sports fans, the fourth-place curse is a familiar, painful narrative. From Milkha Singh’s agonising 400m heartbreak at Rome 1960 and PT Usha’s fraction-of-a-second loss at Los Angeles 1984, to Joydeep Karmakar (2012 rifle shooting), Dipa Karmakar (2016 gymnastics), Abhinav Bindra (2016 10m air rifle), Aditi Ashok (2016 golf), and Rohan Bopanna-Sania Mirza (2016 mixed doubles tennis), Indian athletes have repeatedly come within touching distance of global glory, only to be denied by the narrowest of margins.
That cruel script repeated itself in Glasgow. In para powerlifting, where rankings are decided using a bodyweight-adjusted coefficient system combining the weight lifted with the athlete’s bodyweight, Ashok delivered a valiant performance.
PERSONAL BEST FOR ASHOK
Competing in Group A after the Group B lifters had set the initial benchmarks, Ashok cleared an opening lift of 195kg before shattering his personal record with a massive 200kg bench press on his second attempt. Accumulating 143.8 points under the formula, Ashok stayed firmly in the medal hunt until the final rounds. However, a failed third attempt at 205kg left him stranded in fourth, just behind Malaysia’s defending champion Bonnie Bunyau Gustin, who claimed bronze with 153.5 points.
Gold went to England’s Mark Swan (153.9 pts) with a top lift of 222kg, while Nigeria’s Roland Ezuruike took silver on countback. India’s second contender in Group A, Parmjeet Kumar, endured a tough afternoon on the bench. The 34-year-old opened with a successful 176kg lift to secure 135.6 points. Though he was unable to progress further in his subsequent attempts, Parmjeet’s effort was sufficient to lock in a respectable seventh-place finish overall in a highly competitive field of 12 para powerlifters.
WHO IS ASHOK MALIK
Hailing from Mirzapur Kheri village in Haryana’s Sonipat district, 37-year-old Ashok has built a career defined by remarkable perseverance and upper-body strength. A nine-time national gold medallist in the men’s up to 65kg category, Ashok’s journey hit a major setback at the 2018 Asian Para Games in Indonesia, where he suffered a severe arm injury that left both his radius and ulna bones crushed. Despite doctors initially expressing doubts about his return to competitive powerlifting, he underwent rigorous rehabilitation under national coach Jitender Pal Singh and kinesiologist Tanvir Logani to rebuild his strength and mount a successful international comeback.
Since returning to the bench press, Ashok has cemented his status as one of India’s premier para powerlifters. His international resurgence gathered momentum with a gold medal at the 2022 Asia-Oceania Championships in South Korea, followed by a bronze at the 2022 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou. He clinched qualification for his debut Paralympic Games by securing silver at the 2024 World Cup in Egypt, going on to achieve a career-best lift of 206kg to place sixth at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. Continuing his momentum with another bronze at the 2026 Asia-Oceania Championships in Bangkok, Ashok arrived at Glasgow 2026 as an anchor of India’s para-sports squad.
HOW SCORING WORKS IN PARA-POWERLIFTING
In the Commonwealth Games para powerlifting merged divisions (where athletes across different bodyweight subclasses compete together), final rankings are determined by the AH (Haleczko) Coefficient Formula rather than raw weight lifted alone.
This system multiplies an athlete’s single heaviest valid bench press attempt (measured in kilograms) by a bodyweight-based coefficient factor to generate a standardised points score. Because lighter lifters receive a higher multiplier than heavier ones, the point formula levels the playing field – allowing a lighter lifter clearing 185 kg to directly compete against a heavier athlete lifting 200kg. In the event of a points tie, the medal is awarded via countback based on lower bodyweight or lift progression.
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