For a nation which dreams of hosting the Olympics, the Vinesh Phogat saga has come as a kick in its teeth. It lays bare the struggles an elite athlete endures in the country with no support from those who run the sports. When the Haryana wrestler entered the finals, the talk focused not on her unparalleled feat of bringing down the great Yui Susaki, but on how the medal -- a silver or gold -- would cause unspeakable embarrassment to one side of the political divide in the country. Our athletes have become tools to meet political ends. After the disqualification, there was a general sense of collective loss and sadness as a nation, but our leaders were more interested in pointing at conspiracy theories of internal sabotage.
While there could be debates on the cruelty of weight-cut measures elite wrestlers undergo during competitions and fingers would be pointed at the wrestling team's support staff for not managing Vinesh's case before and during the weigh-in process, there are larger issues to be addressed after this fiasco. A medal would have swept these concerns under the carpet. Now, the nation knows the extent of the rot the sport is in. If our sports bosses don't act now, we should forget about hosting or winning at the Olympics.
Now on the Paris setback. A day after Vinesh was disqualified she announced her retirement from the sport with the words “Alvida Kushti” while the jury was yet to be out on her disqualification appeal. Why did she quit?
Phogat weighed 100 grams more than her weight category of 50 kg prompting the disqualification. But, the back story was that Phogat went through an ordeal like none other. The wrestler pushed boundaries to bring down her weight by 2 kgs and went on a strict diet regimen without food, minimal water and sleep, leaving her weak and dehydrated and eventually hospitalised. For sports enthusiasts, 100 grams of excess weight may appear minuscule against disqualification, but those are the rules of the game, and that’s the way the sport is played.
Wrestlers and others in combat sports like boxing which have weight categories undergo weight-reduction by various means, and the Vinesh case is no exception. Although manipulative, it is followed at the top level. In this case, cutting down six to seven kgs to fit into a weight criteria is not only risky in terms of qualification, but also fraught with medical and psychological risks to athletes. Phogat competed in the 50 kg category when her natural weight was in excess of 56 kgs. The question is, where did the team go wrong?
Phogat was accompanied by the contingent’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, Chef de Mission Gagan Narang, IOA President PT Usha, a nutritionist, a doctor, a physiotherapist and other support staff. The medical officer explained the theory of weight gain post-Vinesh’s semi-final match, and the wrestler commented “It happens in this sport”. These are indications that Vinesh and the officials were fully aware of the consequences and were ready to take those risks.
The real victims are the crores of citizens who are crest-fallen and heartbroken when the underlying reality of the sport lies buried under the euphoria of a gold medal which was at touching distance.
