India’s Tulika Maan wins the silver medal after losing to Scotland's Sarah Adlington via ippon in the women's +78kg judo final at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
The Indian judoka led for the majority of the bout before Adlington pulled off a decisive move, an Ippon, to win gold.
With the match right on the cards, the vastly experienced Sarah had Tulika on the mat with a forceful throw and the 23-year-old landed on her back, ending the contest with 30 seconds remaining.
This is India's third medal in Judo at the showpiece event. L Shushila Devi and Vijay Kumar had claimed silver and bronze in women's 48kg and men's 60kg respectively on Monday.
The spectators too was 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 semi-finals.
A four-time national champion, Tulika, trailed in the match initially but outperformed her Kiwi opponent within three minutes.
The only other Indian, Deepak Deswal, meanwhile, went down to Fiji's Tevita Takawaya in the men's 100kg repechage event.
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.
(With inputs from PTI)
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