Harassment At 12 changed her life: Madhavan applauds Suchika Tariyal’s historic Asian Games MMA Medal

Actor Madhavan recently took to Instagram to gush about Suchika Tariyal. At 36, the combat sports veteran became the first Indian athlete to bag an Asian Games medal in MMA. She won a bronze medal in the women’s traditional MMA -60 kg event at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya. According to the Open Magazine, this was far from the first time Suchika has represented India. She has been the national representative in several sports, such as judo, karate, and jiu-jitsu. She took part in judo for India at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and then competed for the country in Kurash at the 2023 Asian Games. She also won a world title in jiu-jitsu in 2024 before deciding to focus on MMA, which was included in the Asian Games that year. She helped India get its first medal of the Games by defeating Mongolia's Altanchimeg Baigalmaa with a score of 2-0 in the quarter-finals. Since both teams that lost in the semi-finals got bronze medals, Suchika Tariyal was able to stand on the podium.

Tariyal then competed against Singapore's Teo Hui Hoon in the semi-finals but lost 2-0 and ended up with the bronze medal.

According to a Better India report, Suchika’s fascination with combat sports began much earlier than her switch to MMA. Suchika began to train in boxing at the age of 12, when she faced harassment. A resident of Rohtak, Haryana, she trained at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi before moving to the Dada Dev Mandir Centre in Palam. She later trained at SAI Bhopal.


Tariyal enjoyed a successful career in judo and jiu-jitsu before switching to MMA. She bagged gold medals at two MMA-SFI National Championships before earning bronze at the Asian Mixed Martial Arts Championships in January and May 2026.

As per her profile on the Olympics page, Suchika has also served as head constable at CISF and also was employed at the Haryana Department of Sports as a junior coach.