Birmingham, Aug 3: Indian judoka Tulika Maan gave her all but came up short against Scotland’s Sarah Adlington in the final to settle for a silver medal in the women’s 78kg category in the Commonwealth Games here on Wednesday.
Tulika, who won two fights earlier in the day to make it to the final, led for majority of the bout before Adlington pulled off a decisive move, an Ippon, to win gold.
Adlington had Tulika on the mat with a forceful throw and the Indian landed on her back, ending the contest with 30 seconds remaining.
A silver was still a creditable performance from the 23-year-old from Delhi who gave India its third judo medal in the Birmingham Games. The spectators too were largely in favour of the Scottish judoka and they went berserk after Adlington employed an Ippon.
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.
After that she fell on the floor with tears rolling down her eyes. Clearly, it was the disappointment of missing out on the gold.
She had beaten Tracy Durhone of Mauritius in her opening bout before winning against Sydnee Andrews of New Zealand in the semifinals.
Tulika initially trailed in the semifinal match against Andrews but performed an ‘Ippon’ to humble the New Zealander. The only other Indian, Deepak Deswal, went down to Fiji’s Tevita Takawaya in the men’s 100kg Repechage event.
L Shushila Devi and Vijay Kumar had claimed a silver and bronze in women’s 48kg and men’s 60kg respectively on Monday.
It must be noted that in the wake of the de-recognition of the Judo Federation of India on April 22, an expert committee was constituted by the Sports Authority of India to oversee the trials and the selection process for the CWG and also suggest necessary changes.
The committee included Olympian Judokas Cawas Billimoria, Sandeep Byala and Sunith Thakur as well as Judo masters Arun Dwivedi and Yogesh K Dhadve. (PTI)
