Six time world champion boxer Mary Kom weighed in on the Vinesh Phogat Olympics controversy and said that weight management was the individual responsibility of an athlete. However, the boxer stressed that the statement was to do with her case only and not Vinesh.
“I felt so disappointed in the sense that I have also done the same (weight management) for the last so many years. Weight is important, that is my responsibility. I cannot blame anyone,” she said.
“I do not want to say this in her case. I am saying this in my case only. If I do not cut the weight properly then how will I play? I am there to win a medal and that is what I think,” she continued.
In the Paris Olympics, Phogat was heartbreakingly disqualified from competing in the final of the 50kg weight class for being 100 grams over the permissible limit and subsequently announced her retirement from sport.
She also decided to fight for her medal, this time in the court: assisted by the Indian Olympic Association, Vinesh Phogat knocked on the doors of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to be awarded a shared silver medal. But the CAS ultimately dismissed the petition.
In a 24-page detailed order, Annabelle Bennett, the Australian arbitrator who presided over the case, underlined that although there was “no wrongdoing” on Vinesh Phogat’s part, the “formation or validity” of the United World Wrestling’s (UWW) competition policy was not “subject to challenge.”
In her order, Bennett said she saw “logic in a rule” that would ensure the results of Vinesh Phogat’s first-day bouts would be upheld and that “limits the consequences to the round for which the wrestler is not eligible”.
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