PARIS, Aug 8: Her long-cherished Olympic dream shattered by a cruel twist of fate, a crestfallen Vinesh Phogat bid adieu to her international wrestling career on Thursday, saying that she doesn’t have the strength to continue anymore.
The 29-year-old, who was disqualified for being 100gm overweight ahead of her 50kg category gold medal bout in the Olympics on Wednesday, announced her decision on social media, seeking forgiveness from everyone who supported her.
Addressing her mother Premlata, Vinesh, a three-time Olympian, wrote, “Ma, wrestling has won, I have lost. Please forgive me, your dreams and my courage, everything is broken.”
“I don’t have any more strength now. Goodbye wrestling 2001-2024. I shall be indebted to you all. Forgive (me),” added the two-time world championships bronze-medallist.
Her stunning decision comes a day after Vinesh appealed against her disqualification from the Olympic finals in the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), demanding that she be awarded a joint silver medal.
An ad-hoc division of CAS, which has been set up here for resolution of any disputes arising during the Olympic Games, will take up her appeal in the next few hours.
She spent a good part of the day at a polyclinic inside the Games village owing to severe dehydration caused by her desperate measures to make the cut, which included going hungry, avoiding fluids and staying up all night to sweat it out.
Cuban wrestler Yusneylis Guzman Lopez, who lost to Vinesh in the semifinals, replaced her in the final against American Sarah Ann Hildebrandt.
Hildebrandt won the bout to claim gold and Vinesh is now banking on CAS to be a joint silver-medallist with Lopez.
However, the sport’s international governing body, United World Wrestling (UWW) has made it clear on its part that the current weigh-in rule will not be changed as of now.
“On IOA’s suggestion that a wrestler’s results from the day on which the athlete met the weigh-in requirements should not be disqualified, the UWW President was sympathetic.
“UWW will also discuss the suggestion at an appropriate platform but it could not be done retrospectively,” the world body said in a statement late on Wednesday after its President Nenad Lalovic met IOA chief P T Usha.
Vinesh had scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to reach the gold medal bout in her category on Tuesday night.
She was assured of at least a silver medal before the disqualification.
Vinesh is a three-time Olympian and has won gold medals in both the Asian and Commonwealth Games.
For the past one year, she had also been the face of fierce protests against former Wrestling Federation of India head Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment by women grapplers.
Vinesh, who has always competed in the 53kg category, was forced to come down to 50kg just months before the Games after the Paris quota place in that division was locked by Antim Panghal.
Panghal lost in the opening round itself and is facing deportation after trying to facilitate her sister Nisha’s access to the Games Village on her accreditation card.
Vinesh’s Painful Olympic record
Vinesh’s relationship with the Olympic Games has been a painful one, starting with her debut in the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
She had to be stretchered off the mat after suffering a career-threatening anterior cruciate ligament tear in her quarterfinal bout.
Vinesh was 21 at the time and sobbed bitterly through that ordeal, something that prompted an emotional response from even her opponent — China’s Sun Yanan, who famously walked along with the stretcher as a gesture of support for the debutant.
She rebuilt herself over the next four years and made it to the Tokyo Games, which were held at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this time, she seemed a bit under-prepared and was knocked out following a quarterfinal loss.
Her build-up for the 2024 Games was perhaps the most controversy-ridden and tumultuous. She was on the streets for over a month, protesting against Brij Bhushan and the “government inaction” on the charges against him.
She eventually dropped to 50kg category to stay in the hunt for an Olympic spot and against all odds, made it too.
But as fate would have it, she fell short yet again. (PTI)
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