Vinesh Phogat, who was disqualified from the just ended Paris Olympics 2024, will soon arrive in New Delh.
After being disqualified from the recently finished Paris Olympics 2024, former Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat will soon arrive in New Delh. On Saturday, August 17, thousands of people will be waiting outside the Indira Gandhi International Airport to greet Vinesh when she lands. After making it to the finals of the women’s 50kg competition at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Vinesh had promised India a medal. On the day of her gold medal match, Vinesh was disqualified due to being 100 grams overweight at the second weigh-in, which is a tragic turn of events. She had also asked to receive a shared silver medal, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) turned against her appeal.
At Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, security has been heightened in anticipation of Vinesh Phogat’s arrival in India on Saturday. Police have been called in, anticipating that her followers will turn up in force. Later in the day, Vinesh is also expected to go for her village, Balali.Vinesh had lamented her lack of Olympic success on the eve of her arrival in India, relating her personal setback to the larger fight for women’s rights in India, which she had led in her demonstrations against the former head of the wrestling federation.
Phogat left the door somewhat open to a potential comeback to the sport in the future, even though she had already decided to retire, in a three-page letter that was released on social networking platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday night.
Coach Woller Akos has provided a thorough account of the events that up to Phogat’s disqualification, including the hard efforts she underwent to fulfill the weight threshold. Akos, Phogat’s coach at the Paris Games, disclosed in a since-deleted Facebook post that the wrestler went through a strenuous and risky weight-cutting procedure the night before the final weigh-in.
“We worked out for an hour and twenty minutes, but 1.5 kg of extra weight remained after the semi-final, when there was 2.7 kg remaining. Not a speck of perspiration formed on her later, even after 50 minutes in the sauna.She had no choice but to work out for three quarters of an hour at a time on various cardio machines and wrestling maneuvers from midnight until five thirty in the morning, taking two or three minutes breaks in between. Then she got going again. In a since removed Facebook post, Akos stated, “I don’t intentionally write dramatic details, but I only remember thinking that she might die. She collapsed, but somehow we got her up, and she spent an hour in the sauna.”
