Srinagar: A day after creating history by becoming first ever female Wrestler from India to reach Olympic Games finals, Vinesh Phogat was left shattered on Wednesday as she was disqualified from her 50kg freestyle wrestling final at the 2024 Paris Olympics after being found overweight.
Phogat was disqualified on Wednesday from the gold-medal bout after being found overweight ahead of her women’s 50kg match against American Sarah Hildebrand at the Champ-de-Mars Arena. She was found 100 grams over the permissible limit and hence was disqualified.
Based on the rules of the competition, wrestlers have to show their weight on the morning of the preliminary rounds and the morning of the final.
While she was well within the permissible limit of 50 kg on Tuesday, her weight increased throughout the day, when she went through three bouts.
According to Indian Express, she was two kilograms above her weight at night and hence did not sleep to try everything in her capacity to fit the eligibility criteria – from jogging to skipping and cycling.
According to Article 11 of the United World Wrestling’s rule book, an athlete who doesn’t make the permissible weight cut will be eliminated from the tournament. “If an athlete does not attend or fail the weigh-in (the 1st or the 2nd weigh-in), he will be eliminated of the competition and ranked last, without rank (Exception: cf. Article 56 – Medical Service Intervention)”
Owing to the disqualification, Vinesh will lose the opportunity to have her hands on a maiden Olympic medal. Hence, the women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling will only have a gold medal winner and two bronze. Hildebrand will finish top of the podium while the two third-place finishes will be decided after the repechage rounds on Wednesday.