In a heartfelt message on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, August, 29-year-old Vinesh Phogat announced her retirement from wrestling.

Her shocking disqualification from the final because of being over her weight category limit of 50 kg by a mere 100 g, and that too, after a valiant all-night effort by her and her coaching and medical staff to shed weight, must have played a big role behind the decision.

“Mother, wrestling won against me, I lost… Your dreams and my courage are shattered. I don’t have any more strength now. Goodbye wrestling 2001-2024. I will forever be indebted to all of you. Please forgive (me),” she wrote on X [translated from Hindi].

She was both physically and emotionally drained. In fact, she had to be hospitalised on Wednesday because of dehydration, a result of her desperate efforts all through the evening and night of Tuesday right up to the early morning of Wednesday to become the required weight for the final later the same day.

On Tuesday, Vinesh had become the first Indian female wrestler to advance to the finals of the Olympic Games.

Instead of at least a silver, she would return empty-handed. Two of those she defeated en route to the final would return with a silver (Yusneylis Guzman Lopez) and a bronze (Susaki Yui, the top seed never defeated till she was done in by Vinesh).

IOA appeals to CAS

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has appealed to the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to let Vinesh have a joint silver medal as the excess weight of 100 g is too small to have given any advantage to her. The result is awaited.

“The excess of 100g is extremely negligible (representing around 0.1 to 0.2% of the athlete’s weight) and can easily be caused by the bloating of a human body during summer weather, as the heat makes the human body retain more water, scientifically for survival purposes. It can also be due to muscle mass increase as the athlete competed three times on the same day. It can also be caused by the food consumption of the athlete after the competitions to sustain her health and integrity for the demanding competitions,” read part of the IOA’s official statement of facts and legal arguments to CAS.