Analysis of India's performance in judo at Paris Olympics 2024
India’s representation in judo at the Paris Olympics 2024 was limited to just the one participant. Judoka Tulika Maan was the country’s lone competitor in the sport at the Summer Games in Paris. However, Maan could not make any impact, which ended both her and the nation's collective judo dream in a jiffy.
The 25-year-old competed in the +78kg women’s category. In what could be seen as a blink-and-you-miss-it performance, Tulika crashed out of the quadrennial event in her very first bout. Much to the dissappointment of Indian fans, there was nothing much to even review post match.
Maan went up against Cuba's Idalys Ortiz in her Round-of-32 encounter on August 2. It took a mere 28 seconds for the four-time Olympic medalist Idalys to defeat the Indian athlete 10-0. In under 30 seconds, the Delhi born judoka Tulika had lost her bout.
Ortiz was awarded an immediate win, termed an Ippon, after she had pinned her opponent on the back. The strength of the Cuban athlete was way too much as Idalys showed immense speed and control in the way she had her opponent pinned.
The visible shock and disappointment on Tulika Maan’s face said it all. Much like the rest of the country, she too was left heartbroken with absolutely no competition posed by India in the event at the Games in Paris.
The terrible loss could also stem from the face that Tulika was drawn against an extremely tough opponent straightaway in her very first round. Ortiz is a gold medalist from 2012 London Olympics. She was the silver medalist at 2020 Tokyo and started the bout against the Indian as a massive favorite.
However, Tulika Maan's coaching team would have expected her to put on a much better show in the bout. The least that the athlete would have hoped of herself is to last a lot longer in the match.
Does Tulika Maan have the ability to bounce back from a deflating judo campaign at the Paris Olympics 2024?
Though Tulika Maan could not impress on the biggest of stages an athlete can compete at, she is still young and hungry. Maan is early into her career and if her past performances are an indication, she has plenty of talent to stage a comeback.
Tulika can bounce back from the defeat in Paris if she goes back to the drawing board and reflect on what worked for her prior to the Games. The judoka had a great season leading up to the quadrennial event.
The silver medalist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Maan, is probably one of India's best performing judokas over the last few years. She had registered 36th place in the Olympic Games ranking at 1345 points to qualify for the Paris Olympics 2024.
By doing so, she had pipped one of her compatriots and a strong contender in Avtar Singh. The biggest indication of her pedigree is that Tulika is only the ninth Indian judoka who has competed at the Olympic Games.
Prior to the Summer Games, the budding star had won the silver medal at the 2023 Kuwait City Asian Open. Her team would be working with the athlete to see what had worked well for her during her successes.
Tulika Maan over the years has shown that she has a stong head over her shoulders and can work tirelessly towards improving her skills.