TOI Exclusive: Olympian Tulika Maan provisionally suspended by NADA, set to miss Glasgow CWG | Commonwealth Games News
New Delhi: India’s Commonwealth Games campaign has suffered another major blow for the Olympian and 2022 Birmingham CWG’s silver medalist Tulika Maan who was temporarily suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for alleged failures, ending his participation in Glasgow 2026 despite not flying from India.Sources told TOI that Tulika, one of India’s brightest medalists in the women’s +78kg judo category, has accumulated three setbacks in a rolling 12-month period, triggering a temporary suspension under the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code. He was summoned by NADA and is scheduled to appear before the anti-doping body on Thursday.Failure of whereabouts is an anti-doping rule compliance issue that includes filing failures and missed tests. Failure to file occurs when an athlete fails to submit or update mandatory location information for out-of-competition testing, while a missed test is recorded when a doping control officer cannot locate the athlete during the declared 60-minute testing window. Any combination of three filing failures or failed tests within a 12-month period constitutes an anti-doping rule violation and carries a standard penalty of two years, unless successfully challenged. Tulika’s temporary suspension is also a blow to India’s CWG preparations. The Indian contingent has now been reduced to 122 athletes, with the heavyweight judoka set to miss the Games after being temporarily suspended. The Indian judo team is scheduled to leave Glasgow on July 27, with the competitions starting on July 31.The 27-year-old has been one of the leading faces of Indian judo for the past decade. Raised by her mother, Delhi Police sub-inspector Amrita, after losing her father at a young age, Tulika switched from football to judo at the age of eight before rising through the ranks under coach Yashpal Solanki.Her breakthrough moment came at the 2022 CWG in Birmingham, where she won a silver medal in the women’s +78kg category, becoming the second Indian judoka to achieve the feat. He later battled through a serious knee injury to qualify for the Paris Olympics, where he represented India as the country’s lone judoka.The temporary suspension now casts a shadow over the career of one of India’s most accomplished judokas, with the final outcome depending on the proceedings before NADA. If upheld, Tulika could be suspended for up to two years, dealing a significant blow to her career and India’s medal prospects.
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