Vinesh Phogat’s dream run at the Paris Olympics came to a morale-shattering halt as she failed to meet the weight requirement for her women’s 50kg wrestling gold medal bout.
The Indian wrestler was disqualified from the competition and was not allowed to compete in the final. She also lost out on a confirmed silver medal. Vinesh was supposed to take on the USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt, the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist, for the gold medal. Vinesh has been replaced by Cuba’s Yuznelis Guzman, who will fight for the top honour at the Champ-de-Mars Arena.
Race against time
The 29-year-old was a little over 100 grams above the 50kg weight limit during this morning’s weigh-in at 7.15am local time. Vinesh weighed 49.90kg on Tuesday morning ahead of her first-round bout, well within the permissible limit. She, however, gained weight during the day as she secured three back-to-back wins, including one over defending Olympic champion Yui Susaki, to reach the final.
After the end of her semifinal win over Guzman, her weight was around 52.7kgs.
The athlete, her coaches, and her support staff spent a sleepless night without food or water to make the cut. When everything failed, they resorted to extreme measures like cutting her hair, but their efforts did not yield the desired results.
“Her normal weight is 57 kgs, and she did everything to get down to 50. She was 49.9 kg yesterday morning, but the moment she had even a small meal, her weight bounced back to at least 53 kg. She had to reach this weight to have the strength to fight in three bouts,” a member of her camp told Sportstar.
“After the semifinals last night, her weight was 52.7 kg. She didn’t sleep even a minute, didn’t drink a sip of water, and didn’t have a morsel of food. She spent the entire night running and using the sauna. She made it to 50.1 kg but didn’t have time to cut the last 100 grams. There was no leeway and no extra time to make weight,” the member added.
What do rules say
According to UWW rules, “If an athlete does not attend or fails the weigh-in, he or she will be eliminated from the competition and ranked last without a ranking.”
Vinesh is the first athlete to be disqualified from her final for not making weight. She, however, has struggled with weight cuts earlier and barely made the cut during the Asian Olympic Qualifiers in April this year.
Vinesh had wrestled at her first Olympics in the 48kg category. She was 22 then. As she grew older, it became harder to maintain that weight. She then moved up to the 50kg category and then the 53kg category at the time of the Tokyo Olympics. Even at 53kg, she was losing a lot of weight to compete. The weight loss resulted in poor recovery and frequent injuries. Her injury also coincided with the rise of another Indian wrestler, Antim Panghal. As Vinesh lay bedridden, Antim won a bronze in the women’s 53kg category and earned a quota for the Paris Olympics. Vinesh had no option but to drop down to the 50kg category — the lightest in women’s wrestling.
“It is with regret that the Indian contingent shares news of the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat from the Women’s Wrestling 50kg class,” the Indian Olympic Association said in a release. “Despite the best efforts by the team through the night, she weighed in a few grams over 50kg this morning. No further comments will be made by the contingent at this time. The Indian team requests you respect Vinesh’s privacy. It would like to focus on the competitions at hand.”
Tough build-up
The Olympics – the highlight of an athlete’s career - have never left happy memories for Vinesh. In 2016, her campaign was cut short in the cruellest of fashion when she was badly injured in the quarterfinals. Five years later in Tokyo, she had prepared well but the stresses of the weight cut left her with a neurological ailment that left her dazed and confused on the mat, unable even to see what was in front of her during her second-round match. Another early exit followed.
At her lowest point, the powerful, like vultures, picked on her. Her nature, which is naturally confident and outspoken, was used against her. They prodded and nudged at her, confident that her career was all but done. They insulted her. They insulted her coach, Hungary’s Woller Akos, who had left his wife and young child to come and work with the Indian, and accused him of being money-minded.
In January 2023, Vinesh, along with other wrestlers, started an unprecedented protest against the then Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, accusing him of sexual harassment.
She fought her battle not on the synthetic mat but on the pavement of New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in the sweltering heat and humidity of the North Indian summer. One year before the Olympics, while the rest of the world was entering the final lap of their preparation, Vinesh, dressed in t-shirts and pyjamas, was sleeping in a tent under a Neem tree in the heart of Delhi. And when she was awake, she had a microphone in hand, calling out all that was wrong in sport for women in India.
She continued to fight even when the police dragged her away from the protest site. She went to court, and she is still fighting there.
In the autumn of 2023, while Susaki coasted to a second World title, dropping three points in four matches, Vinesh was recovering from surgery on a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament. It’s a surgery that necessitates, at the best of times, a six-month layoff. She cried and willed herself through rehabilitation and qualified for the Olympics.
But just as redemption was one bout away from her, Vinesh’s world has again come crashing down.
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