Who is Reetika Hooda? All you need to know about the Indian wrestler competing at Paris Olympics 2024

Reetika Hooda is one of the six Indian wrestlers competing in the ongoing Olympic Games. In 2023, Reetika became the first wrestler from India to win a gold medal in the Under-23 World Championships after beating Kennedy Blades from the United States. Blades would later go on to break into the USA Olympic team in the final.

Reetika also put her best foot forward in the UWW ranking series held in Budapest, Hungary. She won the silver medal after winning three bouts and losing just one. Reetika has already faced seven of the 15 wrestlers that would compete in the 76kg category in the Paris Olympics.

Among them, Reetika has already beaten six of them. She also faced Colombia’s Tatiana Renteria, who won the bronze medal in the 2023 World Wrestling Championships but lost by one point.

Reetika trains alongside men to prepare for the Olympics as there are no women in her category. Coached by Mandeep Singh, she has all the ingredients to bring India another medal at the Olympics.

---

How did Reetika Hooda qualify for the Paris Olympics 2024?

Born in the Rohtak district of Haryana, Reetika Hooda became the first Indian woman to qualify for the heavyweight 76kg division in the Olympics. She booked her ticket to Paris during the Olympic Qualifiers that took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Antim Panghal (53kg), Anshu Malik (57kg), Nisha Dahiya (68kg), Vinesh Phogat (50kg), and Aman Sehrawat (57kg) are the other wrestlers in the Paris Olympics along with Hooda.

Sakshi Malik is the only Indian woman to have won a wrestling medal at the Olympics when she triumphed in Tokyo. With five female wrestlers in the mix, India would be hoping for a second medal from a female athlete in wrestling at the quadrennial event.

​