Commonwealth Games: All you need to know about Inunganbi Takhellambam

Inunganbi Takhellambam shot to fame earlier this year, winning a medal at the 2026 Asian Judo Championships, becoming the first Indian to do so in over a decade.

The 27-year-old from Manipur, who competes in the women's -70kg category, heads into the 2026 Commonwealth Games as the judoka who ended one of Indian judo's longest-standing continental droughts, and as one of the squad's medal hopes.

Early days

Inunganbi Takhellambam was born on January 24, 1999, in Tiger Camp Village, Imphal East, Manipur. Unlike many of her peers on the Indian judo circuit, she does not come from a sporting family.

She is the first sportsperson in her household, and it was her father who pushed her to take up judo. Her first coach, fittingly, was her father's best friend, a detail Inunganbi has often pointed to as the accidental beginning of her career.

She trained under coach Deven Moirangthem in her early years before being picked up by the Sports Authority of India, a move that opened the door to more structured, high-performance training.

Inunganbi later enrolled in a university, where she became one of the most dominant names on India's university judo circuit, winning the All-India Inter-University Games title five times and completing a hat-trick of golds in the 70kg category at the Khelo India University Games through 2023.

Rising through the ranks

Inunganbi has represented India in international competition since 2017 and has been a regular fixture on the International Judo Federation's World Tour in the years since, steadily building her ranking points across Asian Opens and continental meets.

Her ambitions have long stretched beyond the domestic and university circuit. Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic qualification window, she travelled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for an extended training block specifically aimed at picking up ranking points for an Olympic berth.

That progress showed in 2025, when Inunganbi won gold at the Amman Asian Open in Jordan, followed by a silver medal at the Hong Kong Asian Open, results that marked her arrival as a genuine contender in the -70kg category on the continental stage.

Ending a 13-year medal drought

Inunganbi's defining moment came in April 2026 at the Asian Judo Championships in Ordos, China. After losing in the quarter-finals to Uzbekistan's Shirinjon Yuldoshova, the eventual silver medallist, Inunganbi fought her way back through the repechage route, beating Kyrgyzstan's Alina Moldokulova to earn a shot at bronze.

In the bronze medal bout, she produced a clinical performance, forcing Mongolia's Lkhagvadulam Sarantsetseg to submit to a choke hold for an ippon victory.

The win helped Inunganbi become only the second Indian judoka to win a medal at the Asian Judo Championships in 13 years after Angom Antia Chanu's bronze in 2013.

For an athlete who took up the sport almost by chance with no family background in competitive sport to draw on, Inunganbi Takhellambam's rise to the podium of Asia's biggest judo stage is a reminder of how far discipline and persistence can carry a late starter.