At an age when most combat athletes are thinking about winding down, Suchika Tariyal was building the defining moment of her career.
On Monday, the 36-year-old CISF head constable from Rohtak, Haryana, left the Nagoya City Inae Sports Centre with a bronze medal, the first Asian Games medal India has ever won in mixed martial arts, a sport making its debut at the continental event.
Her run to the podium was sealed across two bouts. A day earlier, competing in the women’s traditional 60-kilogram category, she defeated Mongolia’s Altanchimeg Baigalmaa 2-0 in the quarterfinals.
Under the competition’s rules, both semifinal losers receive medals, meaning the victory secured at least a bronze for Tariyal. Baigalmaa fought back strongly in the final round, but Tariyal held her ground and closed out the bout.
The medal was confirmed the following day when she faced Singapore’s Teo Hui Hoon in the semifinals. The closely fought bout went into extra time before Teo edged ahead. Tariyal finished with bronze instead of the gold she had been chasing, but the bigger milestone had already been achieved: An Indian name had been etched into the record books of a sport making its Asian Games debut.
The journey that brought her here is what makes the medal worth pausing on.
Born on Aug. 16, 1990, in Rohtak, Tariyal began training in judo at 12 after facing harassment that made her want to learn how to protect herself.
She started at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi, later moved to a training center in Palam and eventually trained at India’s national sports institute in Bhopal, where her judo career began to take shape.
For years, judo was her primary discipline. She competed in more than 20 international tournaments and won eight national titles, securing gold at the 2019 Commonwealth Judo Championships and the South Asian Games that same year. She also won a Commonwealth silver in 2018.
Over time, her interests expanded to kurash, in which she represented India at the 2023 Asian Games, and jiu-jitsu.
Tariyal entered MMA in 2017, but her journey in the sport was far from a smooth progression. She stepped away from MMA for seven years, remaining active in judo and jiu-jitsu before returning to MMA competition in 2024.
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That comeback, at this stage of her athletic career, makes Monday’s medal even more significant. It was not an overnight breakthrough, either. Earlier this year, Tariyal had already won a medal at the Asian MMA Championships.
Her fighting career has unfolded alongside her job with the Central Industrial Security Force, where she serves as a head constable.
After her quarterfinal victory, Tariyal spoke about the personal significance of the result, highlighting the sacrifices made by her coaches and family to help her reach this stage.
India had sent two athletes to compete in MMA at the Games, but the other campaign ended before the quarterfinals. Varun Sanyal, competing in the men’s 77-kilogram category, was declared medically unfit ahead of his quarterfinal after experiencing dehydration and cramps while cutting weight.
That made Tariyal’s result India’s only medal in a sport making its debut at the Games, earned by an athlete who has spent nearly two decades moving between judo, kurash, jiu-jitsu and MMA.
For a sport still establishing itself at the elite level in India, her bronze is an opening statement.
For Tariyal, it is something more personal: proof that a career built on stepping away and coming back can still lead to the podium.
