Tulika Maan lost to Scotland's Sarah Adlington in the women's +78kg judo final to seal India's sixteenth medal of the ongoing 2022 Commonwealth Games, earning silver. This is India's third medal in Judo at the 2022 CWG - Likmabam Shushila Devi won silver in the women's 48kg, while Vijay Kumar had claimed bronze in the men's 60kg.
Adlington started off the aggressor, with an advantageous grip 30 seconds in, only for Maan to counter her. Around the one minute mark, Maan was forced into a penalty (shido). Adlington continued to stay on the offensive, forcing Maan into yet another shido. However, Adlington's aggression backfired, as Maan countered her two minutes into the bout, forcing a waza-ari and scoring a point.
With 30 seconds of the bout left, Adlington had the dominant grip and threw Maan onto the floor, thus winning by ippon and winning the gold medal.
Ippon is a move in which a contestant throws his opponent to the mat with considerable force and speed so that the opponent lands on his back. An ippon is also awarded when a contestant immobilizes his opponent with a grappling hold-down for 20 seconds, or when an opponent gives up.
Tulika, who lost her father when she was a two-year-old and is a single child of a widowed mother, is a former Commonwealth judo champion.
She was inconsolable after the bout and was not able to speak to the media though she tried, a standard protocol after every bout.
The 23-year-old had won a gold at the 2019 South Asian Games as well at the 2019 Commonwealth Championships. She finished third at the 2019 Taipei Asian Open and more recently had a fifth-place finish at the Madrid European Open in June this year.
