Vinesh cut hair, drew out blood, didn’t sleep or drink water to reduce weight

Vinesh Phogat’s coaches and support staff took extreme measures to try and bring her weight within the permissible 50kg limit before the official weigh-in ahead of her historic gold medal match against USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt on Wednesday at the Paris Olympics 2024 but nothing was enough. Vinesh, who created history by becoming India’s first female wrestler to qualify for an Olympic final, was disqualified hours before her gold medal bout after failing the weigh-in. Vinesh was reportedly 100gm overweight from the permissible 50kg limit for her weight category. As a result, she was disqualified from the entire competition with no rank, meaning her victories on Tuesday were deemed null and void.
The Indian wrestler won’t even get the silver medal, which she was guaranteed after reaching the finals. As per the United World Westling rules, “If an athlete does not attend or fails the weigh-in, he or she will be eliminated from the competition and ranked last without a ranking.”
The United World Wrestling technical delegate said the repechage round between Japanese Yui Susako and Ukrainian Oksana Livach will become the bronze medal match. “Vinesh failed [the] second-day weigh-in. According to article 11 of the International Wrestling Rules, Vinesh will be replaced by the wrestler who lost against her in the semi-final,” the delegate said in a statement. “Therefore, Guzman Lopez Yusneylis will compete in the final. Repechage Susaki Yui vs Livach Oksana will become a bronze medal match.”
But Vinesh’s coaches left no stone unturned to help her cause. The India Express reported that the 29-year-old passed the weigh-in before her event began on Tuesday morning but was found 2kg overweight at night. The coaches didn’t let Vinesh sleep the entire night to increase her stress. She didn’t eat or drink anything for more than 12 hours and indulged in relentless jogging, skipping and cycling to reduce excess weight.
When everything failed, The Sportstar reported, the coaches cut Vinesh’s hair and “attempted to draw out blood, but their efforts did not yield the desired results.”
The extreme measures left Vinesh weak, feeble and dehydrated. She was taken to a medical centre inside the Olympic village after she felt dizzy and lost consciousness for a brief period.
Cutting weight is a painful process that wrestlers have to endure if their natural body weight is higher than the division in which they compete. Vinesh’s natural body weight is about 56-57kg, and it takes a lot of effort for her to get down to 50kg.
Athletes competing in contact sports go without food and even water two days before the weigh-in. Boxer Nikhat Zareen had said after her defeat in Paris that she did not take either food or water for two days to stay within the weight limit and lost strength as a result.
Hers was not the only weight-related disqualification in the 50kg category. On Tuesday, Italy’s Emanuela Liuzzi was also forced to forfeit her preliminary bout after being found overweight.
Indian Olympic Association requested privacy for Vinesh Phogat.
“No further comments will be made by the contingent at this time. The Indian team requests you respect Vinesh’s privacy. It would like to focus on the competitions on hand,” the IOA said in a release.