Vinesh ruled out by a hundred grams

A mere hundred grams, a millstone around Vinesh Phogat’s neck, weighed her down and sank her hopes in the Seine.

Vinesh was disqualified from the women’s 50kg freestyle category on Wednesday morning for being 100 gm overweight. Missing out on a great shot at gold in the final against Sarah Hildebrandt of the US, Vinesh went down tumbling.

Vinesh’s disqualification smacks of the unprofessionalism of the worst order, and her case became the talk of the wrestling world; no one could remember if there had been such a case before an Olympics wrestling final.

Vinesh, who made the weight cut on the first day of the competition on Tuesday, could not make it on Wednesday morning, the third instance of her Olympics dreams ending in horror, after 2016 and 2021.

When Vinesh reported 100 gm too heavy on the gold medal day, there was no escaping because the rules do not make an allowance for even 10 extra grams. This is crucial in combat sports such as wrestling, boxing, judo and taekwondo, in which fighters of the same size and weight must compete against each other.

The ground must not be unequal, to ensure that a bigger fighter is not pitted against a smaller athlete. A wrestler weighing 53kg, for instance, must not be pitted against a wrestler weighing 50kg — that would give the former a massive advantage in terms of strength and reach. Sport can be uncertain and sometimes a lighter fighter can actually overcome the deficit in strength and reach and defeat a bigger opponent; in elite sport, however, the bigger fighter invariably enjoys a great advantage. In elite events such as the Olympics and World Championships, the rules are very strict, written in stone — even just a few grams over, and a wrestler or boxer is thrown out.

As per the rules set by the United World Wrestling (UWW), wrestling’s global governing body, the grapplers are weighed on the morning they are to fight. In larger events such as the Olympics or World Championships, combatants fight over two days. On the first morning, wrestlers have 30 minutes to make the cut in their weight category — they can jog, cycle, run furiously, do skipping and then come back to the weighing machine. This works when there are only a few grams to lose. On the second day, the day of the medal bouts, wrestlers have 15 minutes at the weigh-in to make the cut. During the weighing-in process, the wrestlers can mount the scales as many times as they want to check their weight.

Combat sports participants are generally ready for Day 1, having reduced food and water intake and skipped meals in the days leading to the event. This leaves them lacking energy and strength, and after the Day 1 weigh-in, they make up for it: They consume high-energy, high-protein food and drinks to gain strength; Vinesh, for instance, took in around 1.5 kg of food after the Day 1 weigh-in, as per the calculations and advice of her nutritionist.

During and after her three bouts, Vinesh was given small amounts of water to prevent dehydration. At the end of the day’s bouts, she was found to have gained close to 2kg.

Vinesh’s natural body weight is around 55kg, but she competes in the lower weight categories because that gives her an advantage. She has won her two World Championships bronze medals in the 53kg category; her two Asian Games medals — gold in 2018, bronze in 2014 — were won in the 51kg and 48kg categories. As wrestlers age, they tend to move up different weight categories. Vinesh, however, has been shedding weight.

In February, returning to competitive wrestling, she won the National Championships in the 55kg category class. The following month, she competed in two categories — 50kg and 53kg — at the selection trials for the Asian Championships and Asian Olympic qualifier. She lost in the 53kg category to an unheralded fighter, Anju, but won the 50kg class. In April, Vinesh qualified for the Olympics in the 50kg category by entering the Asian Olympic qualifier final. The young Antim Panghal qualified for the Olympics in the 53kg. In the months leading to the Paris Olympics, Vinesh, clearly, was making too many weight division switches to be counted among India’s foremost hopes, but her win over Yui Susaki raised hopes of a medal.

Incidentally, if Vinesh had got injured during her semifinal bout and been unable to compete in the final, she would not have had to attend the weigh-in on Wednesday — she would have been awarded the silver medal.

After Vinesh was disqualified, Indian Olympic Association president PT Usha said the Wrestling Federation of India had filed an appeal with the UWW to reconsider the decision to disqualify Vinesh.

The appeal fell on deaf ears, however, for the UWW rules are impossible to be relaxed for a competitor or a country, and there's no possibility of a relaxation of even 10 gm, let alone 100 gm. The UWW, in fact, wishes to ensure that athletes compete in their natural weight categories and not lose weight in unnatural ways to be able to compete in lower categories — as Vinesh has done this year, moving from 55kg to 53kg to, finally, 50kg for the Paris Olympics.

After qualifying for the 2024 Games in the 50kg class, Vinesh said in April that she would need to manage her weight better because she feared putting on weight as “my muscle mass is very high”.

In the event, Vinesh’s worst fears came true in Paris.