Three medals. One Games. Seventy-five years of history rewritten. Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri took to X on Tuesday, 29 September 2026 to celebrate distance runner Gulveer Singh's extraordinary hat-trick at the Asian Games 2026 — a Bronze Medal in the Men's 5000m to go alongside his earlier Silver Medals in the Men's 10,000m and 1500m.

Three disciplines, three podiums — and a place in the record books

The bronze in the 5000m was the final piece of a remarkable puzzle. Gulveer had already climbed the podium twice over the course of the Games, and with this third medal he completed a sweep across the middle- and long-distance track events that very few athletes anywhere in the world would attempt — let alone execute. The sheer physiological and mental demand of competing at peak intensity across three gruelling distances in a single edition of the Games makes the achievement stand apart from routine congratulatory milestones.

Minister Puri called it 'a historic hat-trick' and described the achievement as 'built on grit, consistency and an unbreakable fighting spirit' — language that tracks precisely with what distance running at the elite level demands: not a single explosive moment, but accumulated resolve across kilometres and days.

Gulveer joins Lavy Pinto — a lineage 75 years in the making

Gulveer Singh is now only the second Indian man in the history of the Asian Games to win three athletics medals at a single edition. The first was Lavy Pinto, the Indian sprinter who achieved the feat at the inaugural Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951 — the very first edition of the continental multi-sport spectacle. That Pinto's record stood untouched for 75 years underlines just how rare this kind of multi-event dominance is for Indian track athletes at the Asian level.

The 1951 New Delhi Games hold a special place in Indian sporting history — the country was barely four years into independence when it hosted Asia's first continental Games, and Pinto's triple-medal run became one of that edition's defining individual stories. Gulveer's 2026 achievement now sits alongside it, connecting two eras of Indian distance running across three-quarters of a century.

What Gulveer's haul signals for Indian athletics

Indian long-distance running has been on a quiet, steady ascent. A three-medal haul across 1500m, 5000m, and 10,000m — events that test different but overlapping aerobic and tactical abilities — suggests not just individual brilliance but a training ecosystem capable of producing and sustaining elite distance athletes. For Indian athletics watchers, the question now shifts: can this form carry through to the next Olympic cycle?

Ministers and officials routinely post congratulations after national sporting wins, but the specificity of Puri's post — naming the Lavy Pinto comparison, listing all three medals — signals genuine engagement with the historical weight of the moment. Gulveer Singh, for his part, has given Indian fans a Games to remember.