 "Vinesh Phogat's weigh-in heartbreak: Why UWW are justified in following rules to the 'T' at the Olympics")
India’s campaign at the Paris Olympics concluded with wrestler Reetika Hooda failing to win a medal in the women’s 76kg event following a quarter-final defeat and Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar finishing tied-29th and tied-49th respectively in women’s golf.
The on-field action might have come to an end. However, the Indian contingent remains hopeful of seeing an uptick in the medal tally with one more.
Paris Olympics: News, schedule, medals tally and more
Wrestler Vinesh Phogat has lodged an appeal before the ad-hoc panel of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after she was disqualified from the women’s 50kg event on Wednesday for being overweight by a matter of 100 grams.
She missed out on the chance to secure India’s first ever Olympic gold in wrestling, but is hopeful of signing off with a joint-silver at the very least. And if the verdict does come out in her favour on or before the Tuesday deadline, it will help India sign off from the Paris Olympics with seven medals, matching their most successful haul three years ago in Tokyo.
But what exactly is the weight rule and does it really add value to wrestling by maintaining fairness in the sport?
According to the United World Wrestling’s rulebook, a wrestler will have to compulsorily undergo a medical examination followed by a weigh-in and will have to follow various other rules such as having their fingernails cut among other things.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWrestling events at the Olympics take place over a period of two days — Day 1 comprising pre-quarter-finals, quarter-finals and semi-finals and Day 2 witnessing the medal matches. And as per UWW’s rules, a weigh-in has to take place on the morning of both competition days.
The importance of establishing the rule lies in the fact that a person’s weight does not remain the same, and fluctuations are considered normal. Vinesh’s hard work and months of training had paid off as she had weighed 49.9 kg in her first weigh-in on Tuesday, the day she would go on to halt Tokyo 2020 champion Yui Susaki’s 82-bout winning streak in the pre-quarter-finals to announce herself as a strong contender for gold.
Read | 'You have shown your calibre, how tough you are': PR Sreejesh tells Vinesh Phogat
The very next day, however, Vinesh was found to have exceeded the weight limit by a matter of just 100 grams. The 29-year-old had reportedly put on a couple of kilograms after defeating Susaki as well as Oksana Livach and Yusneylys Guzman in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively.
Vinesh’s coaches, after all, had been replenishing her with fluids during her bout and she had a meal later in the day, all of which contributed to a natural gain in her body weight . She would later resort to desperate measures in order to bring her weight within permissible limit, from cutting her hair and drawing blood to starving herself. All of that, and she still short by a matter of a grams.
There was an outpouring of sympathy for Vinesh on social media , especially from the Indian community — both athletes and experts as well as regular citizens. This was, after all, a maiden Olympic gold in wrestling in question. Even if she lost her final against USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt , she would at least walk away with a silver, becoming only the third Indian grappler to win a medal of that colour after Sushil Kumar and Ravi Kumar Dahiya, and the first Indian woman.
There were coaches from rival camps who also sympathised with Vinesh. Nigeria’s female wrestling coach Akuh Purity, for instance, felt a 2kg tolerance “would have been the perfect due” for her second weigh-in. Several others felt that getting disqualified for being overweight by just 100 grams was being harsh on the athlete.
There is however, a good reason why weight classes are introduced in wrestling in the first place. The primary objective of sports, especially those played at the international level, is for it to be played with as much fairness between the two competitors as possible. Rules thus are meant to ensure a level playing field.
Categorising competitors according to their weights might not be a factor in sports such as football, cricket or even rugby — where one’s body weight often decides role the player, whether the quick and nimble wing or the tall and bulky lock.
Combat sports, however, are a different ball-game altogether, and the reason why sports such as wrestling, boxing and mixed martial arts have different weight classes is the same as to why a majority of sports have separate categories for male and female competitors — to ensure that one’s physical attributes do not in any give a competitor an advantage over the other and that an athlete’s skill ultimately plays a decisive role in influencing the outcome of a match.
Else it would take just one punch for a heavyweight boxer to knock a flyweight out cold, regardless of the latter’s skill.
Coming back to the women’s 50kg event and Vinesh’s disqualification, it sure is tough for an athlete of her calibre to be denied a medal after months of rigorous training. Especially when said athlete had already suffered an Olympic heartbreak in the past , with Vinesh limping out of the Rio Olympics due to an anterior cruciate ligament injury. There’s also the additional challenge of maintaining a body weight of 50 or under for a wrestler whose body natural body weight is around the 57kg mark.
However, in a competition as prestigious as the Olympics, rules have to be followed to the ‘T’ in order to maintain fairness and a level playing field between competitors. Events at this level are often decided by the tiniest in margins, the most recent example of which was Noah Lyles’ triumph in the men’s 100-metre sprint , where he pipped Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second. That’s how tough the level of competition is in the Olympics, and we aren’t just talking about athletics here.
One therefore could understand why UWW president Nenad Lalovic sympathised with Vinesh by firmly defended the rules. “I am so sorry for what happened, but no matter the size of your country, athletes are athletes. This weigh-in was public, everyone saw what happened. How can we allow someone to compete when we all saw what happened? We don’t have any other choice but to follow our rules,” Lalovic had said after the second weigh-in on Wednesday, with IOC chief Thomas Bach also voicing support in his favour.
The UWW does give a weight allowance in certain competitions, but cannot afford to compromise on its rules when it comes to the Olympics.
Read | People shouldn’t forget Vinesh’s heroics even if she doesn’t get a medal, says Chopra
If she does end up with a joint-silver, it will be nothing short of a miracle for Vinesh as well as for Indian wrestling. It would also be a fitting way for Vinesh to walk into the sunset, given she had announced her retirement from the sport right after her disqualification from the Paris Games.
However, if the verdict is ruled in favour of the global body for the sport — which appears the likelier case at the moment — it would be better for us Indians to reflect on whether the real tragedy was denying Vinesh a chance at 53kg category in the first place.
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