The National Open Athletics Championships reach their 65th edition at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi from 8 to 11 October. It is a championship the employer units have owned: they have won 74% of the golds in the 38 editions since 1981.

This year’s entry list carries 36 athletes from India’s Asian Games squad, back from Aichi-Nagoya less than a fortnight ago. Nine won medals in Nagoya, including Kiran Pahal and Poovamma of the gold-winning women’s 4x400m relay, high jump silver medallist Sarvesh Kushare, and bronze medallists Baranica Elangovan and Manpreet Kaur.

Railways again bring the biggest team, 90 athletes, though 11 less than in Ranchi last year. Services bring the most men, 64, and have won more men’s golds than Railways at every edition with  since 2013. That split, Railways strong on the women’s side and Services on the men’s, is the rivalry to watch this week.

History

The first National Open was held in 1963, which makes this week’s meet the 65th. From the 20th in 1981 to the 64th in Ranchi last year: 4,706 medals, 1,569 of them gold, shared among 71 teams.

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The units participation by the numbers: 2026 against 2025

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The 65th National Open has 609 athletes entered, down from 795 in Ranchi last year. The four units account for 205 of them, a third of the field, up from just over a quarter in 2025. 

 

  • Railway is the largest team and it fields more women (48) than men (42).
  • SSCB is the only unit to grow its men’s entry, to 64, the most men of any team in Delhi. Neeru Pathak is its only woman.
  • ONGC nearly doubled to 18, all of it on the women’s side: from one woman last year to nine.
  • All India Police cut its men’s entry from 22 to 14 and kept 18 women, so it too now has more women than men.

 

Railways against Services

The two units have finished first and second in four of the last five team tables. Railways have the deeper team; Services have the men.

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Services have won more men’s golds than Railways at 11 consecutive editions, every one since 2013. Railways keep the team title through women’s events, which supplied 55 of their 75 golds across those five editions.

The entry lists point the same way. Services bring 64 men to Railways’ 42, and Railways bring 48 women to Services’ one. Behind them, All India Police won two golds in Ranchi and ONGC one. ONGC’s larger women’s team, led by Poovamma Raju and Anushka Yadav, gives it the better chance of adding to that.

Other employer teams have dropped away. LIC last won a medal in 2018, Steel Plants in 2007, and HESB and FCI in 1998; none of them enter today. The employer units’ grip has loosened a little. They won 74% of all golds since 1981, but 57% across the last five editions.

Women now win three of every four Railways golds. Railways still takes about half of all women’s golds, but its share of men’s golds fell from 46% to 18% as Services took over. Services has doubled its gold rate and now wins 41% of all men’s golds. Police was the throws power of the 1990s, with 25% of all throws golds in 1993–2001; by 2017–2025 it had 2%. Police peaked at 4.1 golds per edition in 1993–2001 and has since fallen by 90%.

Five storylines for the week

 

  1. The high jump rematch. Sarvesh Kushare (SSCB), Asian Games silver medallist and national record holder at 2.31m, meets Railway’s Aadarsh Ram, who won the Final Series at 2.18m but finished 13th in Nagoya.
  2. A women’s 400m of relay runners. Six of the Nagoya women’s 4x400m squad meet in the individual event: gold medallists Kiran Pahal (Railway) and Poovamma Raju (ONGC), Ansa Babu and Saloni Nagar (All India Police), Neeru Pathak (SSCB) and Rashdeep Kaur.
  3. SSCB against Police in the men’s 400m. Jay Kumar and Dharmveer Choudhary of SSCB race their relay team-mate Manu T S of All India Police.
  4. The pole vault. Baranica Elangovan (Railway) brings India’s first Asian Games pole vault medal; national record holder Sindhushree G failed to clear a height in Nagoya.
  5. The throws. Manpreet Kaur (Railway) returns with a shot put bronze. In the men’s hammer, Praveen Kumar (Railway) and SSCB’s Ashish Jakhar and Mohammad Shahban face Nirbhay Choudhary, who set the 71.02m national record at the Final Series.

 

The last time the National Open was held in Delhi was the 54th edition, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi from 2 to 5 November 2014.