Singapore's Tiffany Teo books place in Asian Games MMA final

SINGAPORE: Mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Tiffany Teo is within striking distance of a historic Asian Games gold medal after she booked her spot in the women's traditional 60kg final.

At the Nagoya City Inae Sports Center on Monday (Sep 21), Teo beat India's Suchika Tariyal and will go up against Uzbekistan's Khilola Sobirova in Tuesday's final.

Sobirova had overcome Cambodia's Cheng Dalin in the event's other semi-final earlier in the day.

"It was just a very happy feeling ... I've been training for a decade and finally I get to compete on one of the biggest stages," Teo told reporters.

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"I was really grateful, very thankful, and very happy to be there representing the nation, representing Singapore, and putting forth my best performance."

The victory came after a dramatic sequence of events.

The semi-final bout was level after the first two rounds, before Teo was initially awarded the win following an overtime round. 

Tariyal and her team challenged the decision, prompting a review that overturned Teo’s victory and declared the contest a draw.

That triggered a weight tiebreaker under Asian Mixed Martial Arts Association rules. Teo ultimately advanced to the final because she had weighed in at 58.8kg that morning, compared with Tariyal’s 59.85kg.

Teo had already made Singapore sporting history before Monday's semi-final.

By advancing to the last four on Sunday, she secured Singapore's first Asian Games medal in MMA after beating Iran's Arezou Salimighalehtaki 3-0 in their quarter-final bout.

With both losing semi-finalists awarded bronze medals, the result guaranteed the 36-year-old at least a bronze.

The achievement comes at the first Asian Games to feature MMA in its programme.

MMA is one of six sports making their Asian Games debuts at Aichi-Nagoya 2026. The others are freestyle BMX, padel, surfing, teqball and virtual taekwondo.

Going into the final, Teo said she will be focused on enjoying the journey rather than being "outcome driven".

"In the past, I was very outcome driven ... I felt that all this added on to the stress of (what was) a very stressful situation to begin with. I came to realise that having that stress doesn't benefit me, it's just going to take me away from the end goal because I'm so fixated on the outcome," she added.

"I believe that if I put forth my best effort, I bring my best skill-set, that will bring me to the gold medal."