Three-time Commonwealth champion, 15 medals in senior wrestling: Vinesh Phogat's record-breaking career achievements and highlights

India's ace wrestler Vinesh Phogat announced her retirement from wrestling a day after her disqualification from Paris Olympics owing to being over the required weight category of 50kg by just 100 gms. Vinesh's dream of an Olympic medal was shattered but she has been a national champion on and off the field

It wasn't an easy journey for Vinesh to be at the Paris Olympics after the 18 months she has had as she had to fight an entire system to be there and she answered everyone on the mat by beating Japanese champion with an 82-0 international record and followed it up by winning her quarter-final and semi-final bouts within a day, only to be disqualified on the morning of the final

A two-time world championship medal winner, Vinesh's medal-winning journey began in 2013 at the senior level with a bronze in the Asian Championships followed by another bronze at the Incheon Asian Games a year later. In the same year, Vinesh won her first Gold in Commonwealth Games in Glasgow

In the next five years, Vinesh had two Asian Championship bronze medals in Bangkok and Xi'an, three Asian Championship Silver medals in Doha, Delhi and Bishkek, one more Commonwealth Games Gold in Australia, an Asian Games Gold in Jakarta and a World Championship bronze in 2019 in Nur-Sultan

Vinesh was on a breathtaking run around the world playing in 50kg and 53kg categories. Two years later, Vinesh finally won her first Asian Championship Gold, overall eighth medal in the competition and a year later in 2022, Vinesh won her third Commonwealth Gold in Birmingham and a second bronze medal at the World Championships

Vinesh also has a junior wrestling championship silver in 2013 but that Commonwealth Games medal was her last one out of the 15 she won in a record-breaking career

Vinesh had done everything in her capacity to finally break that rut of not winning an Olympic medal in her third attempt but having been through fire, she lost to 100 grams in an anti-climax of what would have been a redemption arc for ages

She might be fighting on the mat but for the past 18 months, her fight was much bigger. Vinesh Phogat stood not just for the wrestlers and the wrestling community but also women and women in sports in general. She is and will be a champion for India for years to come...