The unyielding weight scale: A simple rule toppled Vinesh Phogat’s Olympic dream.

What happened to Wrestler Vinesh Phogat is sad, no doubt about that. It is every athlete’s nightmare to find themselves disqualified from any event they participate in, let alone an event of the stature of the Olympics. The months and months of effort and commitment that go into preparing for an Olympics are grueling, gut-wrenching, and incomprehensible to most people who see only the final win or loss as the measure of the athletes. To lose it all, as Vinesh Phogat did, at the very brink of a victorious ending is nothing short of a cataclysmic anti-climax—a feeling that no words can adequately describe.

In Vinesh Phogat’s case, however, the sadness and sense of loss are doubled, considering all that she went through in 2023—fighting on the streets, being pushed and pulled around by the police—all for the dignity and self-respect of women wrestlers against a largely corrupt, bigoted, and misogynistic male-dominated system. She didn’t win that battle either. Her grief over the Olympic disqualification, her lashing out against the injustice of the decision, her plea to the Olympic Committee to reconsider their verdict, and her sense of outrage at what has happened to her dreams and the work she has put in are perfectly understandable. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand the art and science of excellence or the effort it takes to get to the Olympic stage.

Having said this, I will be surprised if the Olympic Committee overturns this decision. Sports is one of those few fields left of human activity where the rules are crystal clear, transparent enough, and with no scope for ambiguity. Even if there is ambiguity, it is part of the rules of the sport, and there is nothing one can do about it. The rules of wrestling, for instance, are simple. The wrestler is weighed on both days of the event, early in the morning, before the bouts begin. The weighing window is thirty minutes, during which time the athlete is free to jump on the scale any number of times to measure an accurate reading. The last reading noted will be the official one. An athlete competing in the 50kg category should weigh 50 kg or less at the time of weighing. Even .0001 kg more than this weight will directly lead to disqualification—no questions asked. Period. To make an exception to any rule, even by a fraction, is akin to opening the doors to chaos and a complete breakdown of the sanctity of the sport and the integrity of all the sportswomen and men. It is part of the wrestler’s team to ensure that he or she adheres to all the rules. That is the reason an entourage of people accompany elite athletes at the taxpayer’s expense. It is their job to ensure that the athlete focuses on her skill and not on anything else.

I am not insinuating that Vinesh Phogat’s team deliberately did something to compromise her position—no. It is quite possible that they fed her the same amount of fluid and food as they would have hundreds of times before. But here is the point: the human body is an organic unit and unpredictable, and no amount of scientifically determined quantities of food can control its behavior. If that were possible, everyone who eats as per their dietician’s instructions should reach their goals. The fact that it doesn’t frequently happen tells us that the human body processes food in a complex way, and there is no straight line that connects intake to outcome—eating is contextual. Several factors determine how a body processes food. The fact that Vinesh’s body quickly put on unexpected weight is nobody’s fault, least of all hers. Even a single bout of wrestling against a skilled opponent can deplete and drain a lot of energy from one’s body. Vinesh had fought three intense bouts against champions to reach the finals. The mental and physical toll on her must have been immense.

Vinesh’s nutritionist, in his statement after the disqualification, clarified that limited water and high-energy foods are typically given after the weigh-in to restore the energy and fluids in the body. The nutritionist also said that he gave Vinesh just enough intake that would have resulted (based on scientific calculations) in a maximum weight increase of 1.5 kg and not more. After all, he is Vinesh’s nutritionist, and we would have to assume that both he and Vinesh knew what they were doing. What they didn’t quite factor in was the amount of rebound weight that could accrue following three prior rounds of competition. This is pretty straightforward. If you have ever worked out in the gym for two hours, and when you have lost a lot of fluids, your muscles are tired, a good trainer will advise you never to overeat but to keep the body relatively hungry. Because once the energy-starved body starts breaking down the food, body weight will inevitably increase. Vinesh’s team estimated (rightly, from their point of view) the weight gain based on past behavior of ingesting fluids—which is the only way to do it. Sadly, however, this time around, the body deviated from the “normal” and gained more weight than expected. The human body, in that way, is quite unpredictable. We think we know it, but the fact is we don’t know it enough. We all know that one of the toughest things to do is to try and lose weight in a short time. To Vinesh’s credit, she did everything she could: cut her hair short, fasted, hit the sauna, and drew blood. However, her weight did not reduce enough to meet the rules of the competition. By the time she stepped on the weighing scale for the last time before qualifying for the final, she was 100 grams over the scale. Not much, we agree, but it was enough for disqualification.

Disqualifications based on technicalities are not new to the Olympics. There have been several instances in the past when this has happened. In the Paris Olympics, US Gymnast Jordan Chiles was asked to return her bronze medal due to a minor technicality raised by the Romanian team. The US team had filed an inquiry over the floor event results four seconds after the one-minute deadline allowed by the International Gymnastics Federation—just four seconds! But it was a violation, and Jordan Chiles, an outstanding gymnast who—like Vinesh Phogat—deserved a medal, had to return what she believed she had rightfully won. In sports, especially in the Olympics, the rules are inviolable. Jordan Chiles is not happy about returning the medal and has raised a formal protest with the IOC, but it is unlikely the IOC will overturn the verdict. The difference between Vinesh’s and Chiles’s disqualification, however, is that in Chiles’s case, considering the number of medals the US has won in the Paris Olympics, her disqualification will not become national news or be spoken about endlessly in the media.

That brings me to the point of this short essay. In a country of 1.5 billion people with such an abundance of natural talent and skills in every conceivable field of human activity, we pin our hopes on one or two athletes upon whom we place all our expectations. Why are we not able to produce world-class athletes? Is it our wretched bureaucracy that stifles excellence? Is it a lack of facilities and sponsors? Or is it because we still believe as a nation that becoming an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer is the only option to gain economic mobility (with some dose of IPL cricket in the mix)? Vinesh was a sure medal prospect, perhaps one of the two gold medals we hoped to bring back (the other gold medal from Javelin). And that is why Vinesh’s disqualification hurts. In a country famished for excellence in athletics, Vinesh is a silver lining. She carries enormous pressure on her shoulders each time she gets into the ring. And each time she fails, the eyes of the nation are on her, analyzing her moves. I read somewhere that there are petitions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to intervene and overturn the decision. I am glad the Prime Minister hasn’t acted on it. He shouldn’t and cannot. In his message to Vinesh, he has called her a “champion” even without an Olympic medal. That is the right thing to do.

The Olympic Committee’s decision is due next month, I guess. If they choose to give Vinesh a silver, it will be an unprecedented verdict. But my sense is that Vinesh will have to look beyond this unfortunate disqualification and set her eyes on 2028 in LA, USA. She is still young, strong, and certainly one of the world’s best wrestlers in her weight category. Champions are gritty, and we know Vinesh is gritty and persevering. I read today that she is contemplating retirement, and her statement contained her gratitude to all her mentors and coaches. It will be a significant loss to Indian athletics if she chooses to hang up her boots because of the disqualification. The least we can do is to stop fueling her sense of being a victim and inject positivity into the narrative. The world doesn’t end with the 2024 Olympics. By constantly dwelling on the disqualification and appealing for consideration and sympathy, we are not doing her any favors. Nor is she helping her own cause. She has learned something from this disqualification: it is time to pull up the socks and start a fresh regimen of training with a focus on winning the next big tournament in the circuit. There is no criticism or setback that success cannot wipe away.

For Vinesh Phogat, the great wrestler and a lady of integrity and resilience, there are more fights to win. Our best wishes and prayers are with her. We hope that she puts the Paris Olympics behind her and looks forward to the future.