The Commonwealth Games 2026 are set to begin on July 23, 2026 and will conclude on August 2, 2026 with 125 Indian athletes participating. The Games will take place on Glasgow, Scotland and the opening ceremony will be held at the OVO Hydro.
The closing ceremony will also take place at the same venue and will see Indian performers coming together. The Olympics official page has confirmed that Indian singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan and popular Bollywood actor Rashmika Mandanna will headline the show on August 2.
Popular Indian artistes Shankar Mahadevan and Rashmika Mandanna will "headline India's cultural presentation" during the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2026 next month. The curtain raiser performance will reportedly last for around 20 minutes.
The ceremony will also see India officially receiving the Commonwealth Games flag "marking the formal handover to the hosts of the centenary 2030 edition in Ahmedabad", the official page of Olympics announced.
The official page also formally introduced the two Indian performers who will grace the prestigious stage on August 2. "Shankar Mahadevan is an Indian playback singer, composer and music director who rose to fame with his 1998 pop album Breathless. He is also a member of the acclaimed Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio, which has composed music for several Indian films", the official introduction read.
Introducing the actress, the Olympics official page wrote, "Rashmika Mandanna is an Indian actress who appears in Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. She is best known for her performances in the Telugu hit Geetha Govindam along with pan-India blockbusters Pushpa: The Rise and Animal."
Besides Shankar and Rashmika, legendary Scottish rock band Simple Minds will also perform and so will Australian singer Delta Goodrem, who had performed 2006 Commonwealth Games closing in Melbourne. Other artistes will include Cammy Barnes, BEMZ, Sandi Thom, Elephant Sessions and Shereen Cutkelvin.
India will host the centenary edition of the Commonwealth Games four years later in November. It will be the second time that the country gets to host the sporting event since the New Delhi 2010 edition.
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