Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification from the women's 50kg freestyle final of the Paris Olympics 2024 for being overweight by 100gm was a heartbreak like no other. The gritty wrestler was on the cusp of making history for India in women’s wrestling, but all her efforts to bring down her weight within permissible limits ahead of the weigh-in on the morning of the final went in vain.
Her Hungarian coach Woller Akos has now revealed that he feared that Vinesh Phogat "might die", in her frantic bid to reduce her weight before the final weigh-in. She was 2.7kg overweight after the semifinal win against defending champion Yui Susaki. What followed was an intense workout session through the night.
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“We exercised for one hour and 20 minutes, but 1.5 kg still remained," Akos wrote in a Facebook post in Hungarian, which has now been deleted. "Later, after 50 minutes of sauna, not a drop of sweat appeared on her. There was no choice left, and from midnight to 5:30 in the morning, she worked on different cardio machines and wrestling moves, about three-quarters of an hour at one go, with two-three minutes of rest. Then she started again. She collapsed, but somehow we got her up, and she spent an hour in the sauna.
"I don’t intentionally write dramatic details, but I only remember thinking that she might die," Akos wrote.
The coach also lauded Vinesh Phogat's spirit and maturity amid the heartbreak and wrote that she consoled him saying that she beat the best woman wrestler in the world (Susaki) and that she proved that she was one of the best in the world. "'Medals, podiums are just objects. Performance cannot be taken away," Akos recalled Vinesh as saying.
Her last hopes of getting a joint silver medal were dashed yesterday, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed her plea challenging her disqualification. Vinesh had initially appealed to the CAS to be allowed to compete in the final. However, in another appeal, she requested a joint silver medal.
Punjab CM Mann blames coaches, support staff
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, once again, blamed the coaches and support staff for Vinesh missing out on the Olympic medal due to disqualification.
“Coaches and staff are duty bound to maintain wrestlers’ weight under prescribed norms as they get hefty salaries from the public exchequer. However, there was a serious lapse in this case, which has bruised the psyche of millions of sports lovers,” said Mann.
Interestingly, Indian Olympic Association president P.T. Usha had said that it was the responsibility of the athlete and the coach to manage the former's weight. The IOA-appointed chief medical officer cannot be blamed, she had said, defending the IOA medical team which had come under fire for the weigh-in debacle.
