New Delhi: Nine days after her heart-breaking disqualification from the Women’s 50kg Freestyle final at the Paris Olympics, Vinesh Phogat broke her silence on a life-changing experience.
The wrestler made history on August 6 by becoming the first Indian woman to enter a wrestling event final at the Olympics. However, the next morning, Vinesh was found to be 100 grams above permissible limit at the weigh-in ahead of her final bout.
On being disqualified, Vinesh and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) approached Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to grant her joint silver medal, but the appeal was dismissed.
On Friday, a day before she is scheduled to return to India, Vinesh opened up on what she went through in a three-page post on X, lamenting that the clock stopped and ‘time was not fair’.
“During the wrestlers’ protest I was fighting hard to protect the sanctity of women in India, the sanctity and values of our lndian flag. But when one looks at the pictures of me with the Indian flag from 28th May 2023, it haunts me. It was my wish to have the Indian flag fly high this Olympics, to have a picture of the Indian flag with me that truly represents its value and restores its sanctity. I felt that by doing this it will correctly reprimand what the flag went through and what wrestling went through. l really was hoping to show that to my fellow lndians,” Vinesh wrote.
She stated she and her team tried their best and did not surrender.
“There is so much more to say and so much more to tell but words will never be enough and maybe I will speak again when the time feels right. On the night of 6th August and the morning of 7th August, all I want to say is that we did not give up, our efforts did not stop, and we did not surrender but the clock stopped and the time was not fair,” Vinesh continued.
“So was my fate. To my team, my fellow Indians and my family, it feels like the goal that we were working towards and what we had planned to achieve is unfinished, that something might always remain missing, and that things might never be the same again. Maybe under different circumstances, I could see myself playing till 2032, because the fight in me and wrestling in me will always be there. I can’t predict what the future holds for me, and what awaits me in this journey next, but I am sure that I will continue to fight always for what I believe in and for the right thing,” Vinesh added.
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