In a startling revelation, the coach of the Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat has opened up about the intense pressure and health challenges faced by the star athlete during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Vinesh Phogat’s hopes of winning the Silver medal got quashed after CAS rejected her appeal against the disqualification.
Woller Akos, Phogat’s coach wrote a post on Facebook in Hungarian which he later deleted, he wrote, “After the semi-final, 2.7 kg of excess weight was left; we exercised for one hour and twenty minutes, but 1.5 kg still remained. Later, after 50 minutes of sauna, not a drop of sweat appeared on her. There was no choice left, and from midnight to 5:30 in the morning, she worked on different cardio machines and wrestling moves, about three-quarters of an hour at one go, with two-three minutes of rest. Then she started again. She collapsed, but somehow we got her up, and she spent an hour in the sauna. I don’t intentionally write dramatic details, but I only remember thinking that she might die.”.
He further wrote, “We had an interesting conversation that night, returning from the hospital. Vinesh Phogat said, ‘Coach, don’t be sad because you told me that if I find myself in any difficult situation and need extra energy, I should think that I beat the best woman wrestler (Japan’s Yui Susaki) in the world. I achieved my goal, I proved that I am one of the best in the world. We have proved that the gameplans work. Medals, podiums are just objects. Performance cannot be taken away’.”
As per the reports, Akos also wrote, “Vinesh had pleaded with Sakshi and Bajrang to not put their hard-earned Olympic medals in the river. She begged them to keep those because they were special. But they explained to her that the journey was important and their performance was not defined by medals. We will still be proud of the fact that our professional programme could lead to beating the best woman wrestler in the world and take an Indian woman wrestler to the Olympic final for the first time in history.”
Vinesh Phogat may not have won any medal but she has made all of us feel proud.
