2026 Commonwealth Games medals will feature braille

The medals for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will feature braille for the first time.

Braille is a system of raised dots which enable blind or visually impaired people to read and write by using their fingers to feel the shape of the dots, which tells them what the words are.

The medals have been designed by award-winning artist Militsa Milenkova from the Glasgow School of Art, and feature tactile elements that relate to the Scottish city, such as the Finnieston Crane landmark, and tartan.

There will be a total of 215 medal events and up to 1168 medals given out at the Commonwealth Games this year, which takes place between 23 July - 2 August.

Speaking about the medal's triangular design, Militsa said: "I wanted to try and fit Glasgow into one shape and to do that I was naturally drawn to the symbol of the city – the coat of arms. That's where I took the distinctive shape from."

She added: "There are three surface levels representing the podiums that athletes step on to – which is possibly the biggest moment of their lives.

"I wanted to make inclusion tangible; I'm so proud that the design is tactile and accessible with details expressed in braille on the prize medal for the very first time."

It's not the first time that a sporting medal has featured braille.

At the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, the medals included a tiny device inside which made a rattle noise when the medal was shaken, allowing visually impaired athletes to know if they are gold, silver or bronze (gold has the loudest noise, bronze the quietest).

The 2024 Paris Paralympics medals featured a different texture depending on if they were gold, silver or bronze, and were stamped with 'Paris 2024' in braille, in tribute to Frenchman Louis Braille, who invented the reading and writing system.

At the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics medals were also stamped with 'Milano Cortina 2026' in braille.

The 2026 Commonwealth games will feature 10 sports and six para sports, with around 3000 athletes from 74 nations competing.

It's one of the few big competitions where able-bodied and para events take place together, instead of in separate competitions.

the biggest para sport medal tally of any Commonwealth Games in history, and for the first time ever, a para sport - para powerlifting - will receive the first medal of the competition.

The Commonwealth Games were originally supposed to be held in the state of Victoria in Australia in 2026.

However, they backed out in 2023, saying it was going to cost too much money to host the event.

In 2024 Glasgow announced that they would host the games, but with a slightly reduced number of sports.