Reetika Hooda at Asian Games 2026: Why She Is Not Competing

India's wrestling squad for the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan, was picked through national selection trials. The women's trials were held on 30 May 2026 at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi, and the 76kg spot went to Priya Malik, who won her semi-final 4-2 on the way to sealing her place in the squad. Reetika, the Paris Olympics quarter-finalist, did not come through the trials.

The two have a running rivalry in the weight class. Priya beat Reetika at the Senior National Championships, before Reetika turned it around with a 6-0 win over Priya in the March 2025 trials for the Asian Championships, a spot she went on to convert into a silver medal in Amman.

Women's 76kg at Asian Games 2026: India's Result

Priya Malik, a former U20 World Champion (2023) and Asian Championships bronze medallist, drew the toughest possible opener in a 10-wrestler 76kg field. She faced defending Asian Games champion Aiperi Medet Kyzy in the round of 16 and lost 1-6. Under wrestling's repechage rules, Priya could only return to the bronze medal bracket if Medet Kyzy reached the final; when the Kyrgyz wrestler failed to do so, Priya's campaign was over. The event was held in a one-day format at the Nagoya City Inae Sports Centre, where wrestling ran from 30 September to 3 October. See the full Asian Games 2026 wrestling schedule for every India bout.

Medet Kyzy has now beaten both of India's leading 76kg wrestlers on the biggest stages: Reetika at the Paris Olympics and the 2025 Asian Championships, and Priya at Aichi-Nagoya.

For Reetika, missing out means her wait for an Asian Games debut goes on, in a career that has otherwise moved from strength to strength since her Olympic debut. Read our complete guide to Asian Games 2026 in Nagoya, Japan and see where to watch Asian Games 2026 live in India.

Reetika Hooda is an Indian freestyle wrestler who competes in the 76kg category, the heaviest weight class in women's Olympic wrestling. She serves in the Indian Navy, where she holds the rank of Chief Petty Officer, and trains at the Sir Chotu Ram Stadium in Rohtak, the same centre that produced Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik. Her rise in a weight class that had little Indian tradition behind it made her one of the sport's quicker success stories, taking her from junior competition to an Olympic quarter-final inside a few years.

Her wrestling is built around quick, aggressive attacks, something that is hard to pull off in the heaviest weight category, where bouts are often more about strength and control than speed.

Reetika Hooda was born on 31 August 2002 in Rohtak district, Haryana. Her father, Jagbir Singh, is a farmer, and her mother, Neelam, is a homemaker. She showed an early interest in wrestling and began competing in local tournaments while still young, training her way up through Haryana's competitive junior wrestling circuit.

Her junior career included a bronze medal at the 2019 U17 Asian Championships (69kg), U23 Asian Championships gold in 2022 (72kg) and a bronze at the 2022 U20 World Championships (72kg), all in lighter weight categories before she settled at 76kg.

Reetika's move to senior competition brought quick results. In 2023 she became the first Indian woman to win the U23 World Championships title, in the 76kg category in Tirana, beating USA's Kennedy Blades in the final. That same year she also won bronze at the Asian Championships in Astana in the 72kg category and medalled on the Ranking Series circuit in Bishkek and Alexandria.

In 2024, at the Asian Olympic qualification tournament in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, she beat Chinese Taipei's Chang Hui-tsz 7-0 to book India's quota place in the 76kg category for the Paris Olympics, becoming the first Indian woman to qualify for the Games in that weight class.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Reetika opened her campaign with a 12-2 technical superiority win over Hungary's Bernadett Nagy before facing top seed Aiperi Medet Kyzy of Kyrgyzstan in the quarter-finals. The bout finished 1-1, with both points coming from passivity, and Reetika lost on criteria because Medet Kyzy scored the last point. When Medet Kyzy then lost her semi-final, Reetika's repechage hopes ended too. She was the last Indian athlete in action across all sports at Paris 2024, and her exit closed India's campaign at the Games.

The defeat stayed with her. She has spoken about replaying the bout's final moments and the what-ifs that came with a result decided on criteria rather than a clean scoring move.

Reetika got a rematch with Medet Kyzy at the 2025 Asian Championships in Amman, where the two met again in the 76kg final on 27 March. Reetika built a 6-2 lead in the second period, only for Medet Kyzy to score a takedown and a gut wrench in the dying seconds and win 7-6, taking gold while Reetika settled for silver.

She has been open about how hard the result was to take, given how close she came, but has also pointed to the bout as proof that her attacks against the Kyrgyz wrestler were working far better than at the Olympics. She also won gold at the 2025 Grand Prix in Ulaanbaatar and world military gold in both 2024 (Yerevan) and 2025 (Warendorf), part of a strong run alongside her Navy commitments.

• First Indian woman to win the U23 World Championships title (2023, 76kg)
• First Indian woman to qualify for the Olympics in the 76kg category (Paris 2024)
• Reached the Paris 2024 Olympic quarter-finals, India's last athlete in action at the Games
• Asian Championships silver medallist (2025, 76kg)
• Two-time World Military Championships gold medallist (2024, 2025)

Reetika Hooda's career has been built on breaking new ground in a weight category India had barely explored before her. Missing the Asian Games this time is a setback, not a full stop. With Priya Malik's run at Aichi-Nagoya ending in the opening round, the 76kg spot in India is wide open again, and Reetika's next target is winning the rivalry back.

For her full profile, medal record and competition history, see Reetika Hooda on Wikipedia.