Vinesh Phogat has struck equilibrium in life at this point, by blindly trusting the one man she loves, and by blanketly mistrusting those she knows that dislike her.
In wrestling’s tale of continuum trials (will happen / won’t happen?) and its proverbial best and worst of times with 5 women qualifying, Vinesh laughed heartily when asked about the latest development that unfolded on Tuesday. The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had flipped its last recent decision and announced there would be no trials. So as a quota earner, Vinesh would head to Paris Games in 50 kg, and the door was shut on her pet category, 53 kg.
“I feel neither shock, nor happiness. Jo bhi hai, dedh saal se zhel hi rahe hai. (Whatever happens we are enduring anyways for a year and half.) I’m just happy I made the right decision of going into 50 kg and winning the quota and I’m comfortable with what I chose. If there was one thing I was certain about, it was that with WFI, kuchh na kuchh gadbad zaroor hoga. (Some mischief or the other was a given),” she said, sounding as relaxed and amused as anyone caught in this madness of Indian wrestling’s shenanigans, could possibly be.
A natural in 53 kg originally where her junior and WFI’s preferred choice, the talented Antim Panghal had won the quota, Vinesh had taken a wild and inspiring punt to drop down to 50 kg. Returning from surgery in 2023, the obvious choice and medically recommended too, was stepping up to 57 kg, where making weight wouldn’t have been so arduous and one right torture as it will be in 50. But Somveer Rathi, a clever wrestler himself, and Vinesh’s husband, understood her mat-craft and did a quick SWOT on her game, insisting she needed to dip south, to 50 kg. “I’m happy we chose right because I foresaw this trials decision from a mile,” she grins.
She hadn’t been so sure when Somveer floated the idea. “He truly pushed me to go through with that decision and had more confidence in me than I had in myself. For me, he’s been the most supportive, funny, no tension-person, everything. Every single person in my team is dil-se connected to me now and helping out, but back then all of us, including me thought 57 would be the only option. Somveer insisted it should be 50. Once decided, I didn’t overthink or doubt it,” she recalls.
Vinesh was equally sure that the leadup to the Olympics would be laced with chaos and confusion, so the trials flip-flop didn’t come as a surprise. “All my well-wishers in SAI and OGQ and even the government kept saying that trials would happen for sure. I asked them, ‘But, who’s making the policy? They will go to sleep announcing one thing, and wake up next day and declare the opposite! I don’t want to be the second Sushil pehelwan who missed out in 2016 because of the trials controversy,” she would explain, the genesis of her long mistrust with how WFI functions, based on power they’ve cynically wielded for years.
That mess she witnessed from the sidelines, has been compounded by the more obvious and recent happenings, where she led the women wrestlers’ protest against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, accused by six wrestlers of sexual harassment. “I was sure they will not have trials and it will be exactly the same scenario like Sushil being denied trials. Plus, there is a strong dislike towards me. Ek main moofat hoo (speak bluntly) and officials just don’t like women who speak their mind. On top of that I’ve taken on their ex-president. So I knew there would be efforts to ensure I don’t make it and they can say, ‘see, see, her career is done.’ I wanted to ensure my destiny is in my hands, so that 50 kg call was crucial.”
She jokes she has a desperate relationship with food, which will only be set right once she has a meal after winning an Olympic medal. “This whole struggle has been emotional for my family too. Even after I couldn’t win a medal at the last Games, they clung on to the hope that I could win at the next. For my mother who gets shocked by how I starve, it’s like, please get the medal once and for all, taaki bechari ko theekse khana mil jaaye.”
Where Vinesh is enjoying this phase of her career is on the training mat. “There’s a thousand problems outside the mat. But I’ve rarely had a training session where my mood is bad. As a senior athlete, I’m enjoying the sport in training where we tweak details,” she says.
Headed to her third Olympics, Vinesh, India’s most successful woman wrestler with three World Championship medals says, the Games mindset can be wildly different to anything else. “Some wrestlers pull on extra pressure. Some breeze through it all lightly. I’m excited to know how I will be this time,” she says.
Anticipation and preparation by covering all bases has been the key to dodging sudden moves pulled by her powerful critics in India, and she’s unlikely to drop her guard against even unheralded opponents on the mat at Paris. “At the Olympics even a ‘weak’ opponent can stun you with a counter and ruin all plans within the first minute by sticking out a leg. You are always alert,” she says, eternally wary and forced to be sharp.
She trusts her closest team implicitly, but knows she must climb that final ascent alone. “I have a perfect playlist of 10-15 songs to inspire me and I keep listening to them. My favourite is the title song of Lakshya (2004 Hrithik Roshan – Preity Zinta starrer),” she says. The real trial by fire, lies up ahead.
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