The News
An Indian wrestler disqualified from the Paris Olympics for failing a weigh-in said on Thursday that she will retire from the sport.
Vinesh Phogat, 29, was disqualified from competing in the freestyle category finals for weighing just over the 50kg limit — she was over by 100g, the weight of a small banana — despite cutting her hair and shortening her clothes in a bid to meet the rules. Her disqualification triggered an outcry among fans in India, which had pinned its hopes on Phogat becoming the country’s first woman to win an Olympic gold.
“Mother wrestling won against me, I lost. Your dreams and my courage are shattered,” Phogat wrote on X. “I don’t have any more strength now. Goodbye wrestling 2001-2024. I will forever be indebted to you all. Sorry.”
A medal would “have been something of a salve to a year of turmoil in India’s wrestling community,” NPR wrote. Last year, Phogat was the face of athletes’ protests against the former president of the Wrestling Federation of India, whom she accused of sexual harassment. A photo of her being violently detained by police had gone viral.