Baranica Elangovan wins bronze, India’s first Asian Games pole vault medal

Baranica Elangovan won bronze in the women’s pole vault at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on 25 September 2026, clearing 4.15 metres to become the first Indian to win an Asian Games medal in pole vault — men’s or women’s, in the event’s entire continental history.

She shared the bronze with Kazakhstan’s Polina Ivanova, both athletes clearing the same height with identical competition cards and unable to be separated on countback. Japan’s Misaki Morota won gold with a personal-best 4.55m, and China’s Chunge Niu took silver at 4.50m. The gap between bronze and gold — forty centimetres — tells you the level the event has reached in Asia, and why being on the podium at all is the achievement.

The competition

Position	Athlete	Country	Height
Gold	Misaki Morota	Japan	4.55m (PB)
Silver	Chunge Niu	China	4.50m
Bronze (shared)	Baranica Elangovan	India	4.15m
Bronze (shared)	Polina Ivanova	Kazakhstan	4.15m

Both Baranica and Ivanova cleared 4.15m but could not manage 4.25m. Their attempts matched exactly, so the rules awarded both the bronze. The other Indian in the final, Sindhushree Ganesha, did not register a valid height.

What made this historic

Women’s pole vault joined the Asian Games programme in Bangkok 1998. In the eight editions since, including this one, no Indian woman had reached the podium. On the men’s side, the event has been contested since the first Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951 — 75 years ago — and no Indian man has medaled there either.

What Baranica did was not merely win a bronze. It was open a door that had never been opened, in a discipline India has been attempting at this level for over two decades.

Year	Host	Indian medal in pole vault
1998	Bangkok	None (event introduced for women)
2002	Busan	None
2006	Doha	None
2010	Guangzhou	None
2014	Incheon	None
2018	Jakarta	None
2022	Hangzhou	None
2026	Aichi-Nagoya	Baranica Elangovan, bronze

Who Baranica Elangovan is

Age	29 (born 3 February 1997)
Hometown	Kuthalam, Mayiladuthurai district, Tamil Nadu
National record	4.23m (May 2026)
Training base	Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar
Coach	Milber Russel

Baranica comes from an agricultural family in a small town in Tamil Nadu. She took up athletics in class six, initially competing in sprints and long jump before specialising in pole vault. She studied at Ethiraj College for Women in Chennai, then completed her master’s at M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women.

In 2023, she moved her training base from Tamil Nadu to the Kalinga Stadium facilities in Bhubaneswar, a shift that coincided with her breakthrough. The Kalinga complex, built around the 2018 Men’s Hockey World Cup, has become one of India’s better-equipped training centres, and Baranica has credited the infrastructure and environment for her improvement.

The year that made the medal possible

Baranica had chased the national record for four years, watching Rosy Meena Paulraj break it twice to reach 4.21m in 2022 before she could catch up. In March 2026, at the National Indoor Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, she finally took the record with 4.22m. Five weeks later, at the Indian Indoor Open at the same venue, she improved it to 4.23m.

That record — 4.23m — put her within range of a medal at the Asian Games, though never in range of gold. China’s Li Ling, the two-time defending champion, holds the Asian record at 4.72m; Morota’s winning 4.55m today would have beaten Baranica’s personal best by 32 centimetres even if she had matched it. What the record gave her was a realistic shot at bronze, and she converted it.

What pole vault requires

Pole vault is not a power event dressed up as technique; it is a technique event dressed up as athletics. The run-up determines the energy available. The plant determines how much of that energy transfers to the pole. The swing, turn and push determine how efficiently that energy lifts the body. A flaw anywhere in the chain leaks centimetres you never get back.

India has historically struggled with technical field events. The sprint-derived disciplines — long jump, triple jump — have produced more results, because they rely more on the raw speed India’s athletics system does produce. Pole vault, high jump and the throws require coaching lineages, equipment ecosystems and technical knowledge that take decades to build. An athlete can will herself to run faster; she cannot will herself to master a technique nobody around her knows.

What Baranica’s medal suggests is that the technical pipeline is, slowly, being built. The move to Bhubaneswar, the coaching from Milber Russel through the Pudhumai Penn Foundation, the access to facilities where she could vault regularly — those are structural inputs that compound over years. The output is a bronze medal that nobody before her managed.

What it does not prove

It does not prove that Indian pole vault has arrived. A bronze at 4.15m is forty centimetres below the winner; the gap is not close. The only other Indian in the final did not register a valid height. One athlete reaching the podium is a breakthrough, not a programme. It takes nothing away from Baranica to say that the next medal is not guaranteed.

And it does not prove that the path she took is replicable. Moving across the country to a better-equipped facility worked for her; it is not a model that scales. What scales is building facilities and coaching networks where athletes already are, so the next Baranica does not have to leave Tamil Nadu to become a national record holder.

What it means today

It means that when Baranica Elangovan stands on the podium in Aichi, she stands where no Indian has stood before in this event. The men’s pole vault has been at the Asian Games for 75 years; the women’s for 28. Neither had produced an Indian medal until today.

The bronze is not the highest finish India managed on this day of athletics — Gulveer Singh’s silver in the 10,000m was that. But Gulveer’s silver came in an event India has medaled in before. Baranica’s bronze came in one India never had. That is the difference between a good result and a new category of result.

At 29, with a national record of 4.23m and a proven ability to perform at a continental final, Baranica is not at the end of anything. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are less than two years away. The qualifying standard will be demanding — 4.70m or top-30 ranking — but she is now an athlete who has proven she can compete at the highest level Asia offers. What comes next is the question. What came today was the answer to a question 28 years in the asking.