Tulika Maan is an Indian judoka who won the silver medal in the women’s 78 kg final at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
She is from Delhi NCR. She has won numerous gold medals at the senior national level in India.
Maan is also an Indian junior national silver medalist. Tulika has participated in the IJF World Tour from 2019. At the Asian Open in Taipei, she won bronze. In 2018 she won the Commonwealth Championships in Jaipur.
She competed at the Worlds in Tokyo after making her debut at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest. In Walsall, she won the Commonwealth title in 2019.
Tulika Maan was born on 9 September 1998 to Satbir Maan and Amrita Singh. Mann also a has younger sister. When she was only 14, she faced a grave personal tragedy. Her father, Satbir Maan, was fatally shot over a business dispute. It thus fell over Maan to provide her family with the emotional support. Her mother is a sub-inspector with the Delhi Police.
Tulika Maan decided to take up the sport at the age of 8 as a way to pass the time and soon became a skilled amateur. It wasn’t until 2017 that she met her coach Yashpal Solanki, an Arjuna Awardee. He has since been helping her improve her game.
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Maan’s first achievement on the national stage was when won a silver medal Junior National Championship 2016 Saifai, UP. Then she was a gold medallist at the Senior National Championship in Chennai, 2017. She improved her previous best by winning gold at the Junior Nationals 2017 in Jalandhar, Punjab.
She then won a bronze at the Junior Asian Championships in 2017 at Kyrgyzstan. She defended her title at the Senior Nationals in 2018 in Jammu and Kashmir. She again won a bonze at the 2018 Junior Asian Championships in Lebanon.
Mann then finally struck gold at international level when she won the 2018 Junior Asian Cup, Macau. She was a silver medallist at the Junior Commonwealth Judo Championships, 2018 held at Jaipur.
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Just before the 2018 Asian Games, Tulika was terminated from the TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme), making it challenging for her to secure funding for outside events. She still didn’t stop earning laurels for her country, earning a gold at the South Asian Championships 2018 in Nepal. She won a gold at the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Senior Commonwealth Judo Championships.
She has won a bronze in the 2019 Asian Open, Taiwan. She also won a gold in the South Asian Games which were held in Nepal, 2019. In 2022, Maan alleged harassment by the Judo Federation of India (JFI). According to her claims, the JFI purposefully left her weight category off the Birmingham Commonwealth Games roster. The Judo event was excluded from the 2018 Commonwealth Games but has been included in the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
