Vinesh Phogat, a former Indian wrestler, silenced millions of her opponents by defeating the Olympic champion Yui Susaki at the 2024 Paris Games. She also made history by being India’s first female wrestler to reach the Olympic Games final. But life has other plans for her. In an unfortunate twist, Vinesh was eliminated on the final day of her gold medal match simply for being 100 grammes overweight. Thus, she neither won the gold medal competition nor did she even receive the silver medal.
Woller Akos, Vinesh’s coach at the Paris Olympics, stated in a Facebook post (now deleted) that he feared that the wrestler might end up losing her life through a severe workout to lose the extra 100 grammes. He added, “After the semi-final, 2.7 kg of excess weight was left; we exercised for one hour and twenty minutes, but 1.5 kg still remained. 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.”
“We had an interesting conversation that night, returning from the hospital. Vinesh Phogat said, ‘Coach, don’t be sad because you told me that if I find myself in any difficult situation and need extra energy, I should think that I beat the best woman wrestler (Japan’s Yui Susaki) in the world. I achieved my goal, I proved that I am one of the best in the world. We have proved that the gameplans work. Medals, podiums are just objects. Performance cannot be taken away’,” Akos continued.
He concluded, “Vinesh had pleaded with Sakshi and Bajrang to not put their hard-earned Olympic medals in the river. She begged them to keep those because they were special. But they explained to her that the journey was important and their performance was not defined by medals. We will still be proud of the fact that our professional programme could lead to beating the best woman wrestler in the world and take an Indian woman wrestler to the Olympic final for the first time in history.”
According to sources, Vinesh had even appealed to the CAS(Court of Arbitration for Sports) but it was not heard. For five hours, Vinesh and her training team worked tirelessly to control Vinesh’s weight. This included trimming her hair, collecting blood, and taking other extreme steps.
However, after being chastised for ‘not doing his job correctly’, with the International Olympic Committee president PT Usha calling Vinesh and her coach accountable for weight control, Akos claimed the latter and everyone else tried all possible, detailing the behind-the-scenes efforts.