Birmingham, Aug 4: India’s Tulika Maan lost to a much experienced Sarah Adlington of Scotland in the women’s 78kg division to bag a silver medal in judo at the Commonwealth Games at Victoria Park, Coventry on Wednesday.
Tulika, who started defensively and had earned two cautions against the 2014 Games gold medallist, got a point when she managed to bring her opponent down.
But the judoka from Scotland launched a superb attack and brought down Tulika to earn an Ippon to win the match with less than one minute remaining on the clock.
This was a huge setback for the Indian judoka from New Delhi as she had reached Birmingham with lots of hope of winning her first major international gold medal.
But it was not be as an Indian judoka had to once again had to settle for silver.
Earlier, Shushila Devi Likmabam had won a silver medal in the women’s 48kg class while Vijay Kumar Yadav claimed a bronze medal in the men’s 60kg division.
India have bagged three silver and five bronze medals in judo at the Commonwealth Games so far. Judo is an optional sport at the Commonwealth Games and has been held at 1986, 1990, 2002 and 2014 editions before Birmingham.
In the semifinals, Tulika got the better of Sydnee Andrews of New Zealand, launching an attack at the stroke of two minutes in normal time.
Tulika, who got a bye in the Round of 16, started the final day of competition in the women’s highest weight category with a comfortable win against Tracy Durhone of Mauritius, winning by an Ippon.
Tulika launched an attack in the first minute itself and earned a Waza-ari. She then claimed another Waza-ari in the final minutes of the three-minute normal time so win by an Ippon.
This is the biggest medal of Tulika’s career as the 23-year-old from New Delhi has so far bagged a gold medal in the South Asian Games in 2019 and two gold medals in Commonwealth Championships in 2019.
