Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat and her team gave it their all to weight the extra weight she had put in on Day 1 of her campaign at the Paris Olympics 2024. Vinesh had become the first Indian woman wrestler to make her way into the finals of the Olympics and was set to etch her name into the history books.
However, destiny had some other ideas set as the grappler was disqualified from her gold medal bout after being found overweight on Day 2, the day of the final. Vinesh worked for hours after her semifinal bout to cut the extra kilos she had put on while replenishing her body on a busy day which had three bouts.
Her coach, Woller Akos, has now revealed the behind-the-scene work the wrestler had put in due to which he felt the grappler might have died too. "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," he wrote in a social media post which he later took down.
He recalled a conversation with Vinesh where the wrestler showed grace despite being shattered by the disqualification. "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 game plans work. Medals and podiums are just objects. Performance cannot be taken away," he added.
He recalled that Vinesh had begged Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia to not immerse their medals in the river Ganga. "Vinesh had pleaded with Sakshi and Bajrang to not put their hard-earned Olympic medals in the river. She begged them to keep them 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," he said.
