100 grams: The unbearable weight of Vinesh Phogat’s despair

Paris: Imagine winning three wrestling bouts on a single day (one against an utterly dominant opponent who didn’t know how to lose, no less), making the Olympics final and swinging back on to the mat almost soon after.
Not to work on some technical finetuning, but to shed a few kilos for the next day.
Vinesh Phogat’s race against time to bring her weight down within the permissible 50kg limit for her weight-in on Wednesday morning began right after she had won her third and final bout on Tuesday. It was no ordinary victory. Vinesh had become the first Indian woman wrestler to make the final of the Games in Paris after a breezy semi-final win. She was drained and emotional, promising her mother she’d grab the gold through a video call set up by the organisers.
Before that, though, it was time to trim.
Her natural weight of 55-56kg, and the two-time World Championships medallist moving down to the 50kg Olympic weight division, meant she had put on added “rebound weight” — as the contingent’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala put it — from taking in water through the day and her three bouts.
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“Vinesh had three bouts, and hence, small amounts of water had to be given to prevent dehydration. Her post participation weight was found to be increased,” Pardiwala said.
Vinesh had put on 2.7kg beyond her prescribed weight division by the end of her last bout, at around 7.20pm (local time) in the evening. Her personal team — comprising coach Woller Akos and experts of strength and conditioning, nutrition and mental conditioning — had done this weight cutting exercise several times in the past with Vinesh. They “felt confident that it would be achieved”, according to Pardiwala.
Vinesh was seen skipping soon after her last bout, and also hit the mat for training, which would further fasten her sweat and shed. “She was here doing mat training and practice for about an hour once her final bout was done,” India’s national wrestling team coach Virender Singh Dahiya said.
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The climate getting cooler in the evening on Tuesday in Paris and staying so until the early hours of Wednesday morning perhaps did not help in the sweating process. So did the distance from the wrestling arena to the Athletes’ Village, about an hour’s drive.
“She began her weight cut at this point, but less than 12 hours was too little time to achieve a medically safe weight cut,” Pardiwala said.
Still, Vinesh and her team were at it. Staying off even water now, Vinesh stayed up all night trying to shed the kilos inside the Athletes’ Village. She hit the gym, got on to the treadmill, engaged her body through running, skipping and even cycling.
She slipped into the sauna frequently. Her weight was checked every 30 minutes all along this process. The team soon realised drastic measures had to be summoned. Her hair was thus trimmed, and the clothes shortened to do away with every ounce of added weight on her body.
The 30-minute weight checks would give her real-time progress. There was progress, but not fast enough to meet the deadline of the weigh-in between 7.15 and 7.30am. But she continued to keep at it, trying to sweat out as much weight as she possibly could through her physical exertion and zero intake of anything for the last several hours.
The weight checks continued, and Vinesh and her team, along with Pardiwala, sensed that it would be touch and go, at best. They came in for the weigh-in with a bit of that sinking feeling, trying to let the clock tick, and the body drip the last few grams of added weight, for as long as possible. At 7.29am, when they were left with no option but to step up (a no-show at the weigh-in would also have resulted in her disqualification), Vinesh did. And, on two separate weighing scales came the same outcome. She was above her weight by around one hundred grams.
Had they got a few more minutes, Pardiwala reckoned, they may have made it. The organisers, however, swore by the rules. It was 7.30pm, and it was the end of Vinesh’s Olympics, despite the repeated pleas from the Indian contingent.
The medal dream shattered, Vinesh still had to be looked after. She was completely dehydrated with the heightened activity through the night, and was immediately taken to the Village’s polyclinic. “As a precautionary measure, Vinesh was administered some intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration,” Pardiwala said.
A few blood tests were conducted as a precaution at a local Olympic hospital here. “All her parameters are normal,” Pardiwala said.
Vinesh was back in the polyclinic of the Village. And after a while towards the evening, back in her room. Not as an Olympic medallist she would have pictured herself a little less than 24 hours ago.