When Vinesh Phogat walked out at the Champ-de-Mars Arena this week, she was hardly a favourite to qualify for the women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling final. Though regarded as one of the finest wrestlers to emerge from India , she had much to prove given what she had endured on her way to securing a ticket to the Paris Olympics .
From protesting on the streets for months demanding legal action against India’s wrestling federation chief over sexual harassment allegations to challenging social norms by taking up a sport traditionally considered unsuitable for women, Vinesh faced a Herculean’s task.
Coming from the conservative northern state of Haryana , Vinesh and her cousins Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat overcame social barriers that restricted women to their homes.
Haryana is infamous for preferring boys over girls to the extent that, according to the 2011 census, its sex ratio was 879 women for 1,000 men, way below the national average of 943.
Vinesh was aided along by her uncle Mahavir Singh Phogat, an amateur wrestler and coach who introduced her to the sport early on, as he had his daughters Geeta and Babita.
Geeta would go on to win India’s first gold medal in women’s wrestling at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
The coach’s pivotal role in helping his daughters and niece succeed is memorialised in the hit Bollywood film Dangal.
Vinesh started her wrestling journey just as Geeta was establishing herself on the national stage. She would go on to win three Commonwealth golds, a pair of World Championships bronze medals and an Asian Games gold. She was also crowned Asian champion in 2021.
She was on the cusp of making history as her country’s first wrestler to win an Olympic silver, and possibly gold, when fate intervened. When she was weighed on the morning of her final match on Tuesday, she came in about 100g overweight and was instantly disqualified.
“It is with regret that the Indian contingent shares news of the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat from women’s wrestling 50kg class," the Indian Olympic Association said.
Vinesh announced retirement from wrestling on Thursday.
The news of her disqualification evoked an outpouring of sympathy in India, with prime minister Narendra Modi describing her as a "champion among champions” on X.
Many of her compatriots hailed the wrestler as “inspiration”, as much for her fight inside the ring as outside.
Vinesh, 29, was a prominent face of last year’s protests against wrestling federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Along with fellow Olympians Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, she demonstrated on the streets of the capital Delhi to demand action against Mr Singh over sexual assault and intimidation charges, only to be manhandled by police.
They called off the protest after then federal sports minister Anurag Thakur promised a fair investigation but resumed it when Mr Singh was re-elected the federation’s chief.
The wrestlers were assaulted and detained by police when they marched to the new parliament on the day of its inauguration last May.
At the peak of protest, with her career on the line, Vinesh was asked about the source of her courage. “It’s from my mother,” she said.
She recounted her mother’s struggle as a single parent and battle with cancer . “She was about 32 when she became a widow,” Vinesh told The Indian Express .
“I feel sad thinking about it. She struggled for us. In that struggle we didn’t even realise when we grew up. A single woman, she would be taunted by others, how they treated her.
“She didn’t even know where to sit, where to get off. No one supported her. We grew up seeing her struggle. If a single woman like that, illiterate, could fight the society on her own and make us big wrestlers, then we can do it too.
“If we don’t speak out today then all the struggles of my mother would have gone to waste. I won medals, that’s all right, but if we win this battle, she will proudly say, ‘I gave birth to them’. I am proud that my mother showed so much strength and character, I guess that’s in me as well. Even my father was like that. I am also like that.”
In a public voice call on Tuesday, she told her smiling mother that she would win gold.
Two days on, retiring from the sport, she wrote: “Mother, wrestling won, I lost. Forgive me that I broke your dream, but I do not have courage and energy anymore.
“Goodbye wrestling 2001-2024, I will always be indebted to your support. Forgive me.”
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