ReutersIndian wrestler Vinesh Phogat has announced her retirement from the sport, a day after she was disqualified for failing the weigh-in at the Olympic Games.
The 29-year-old was set to face the US’s Sarah Hildebrandt in the playoffs for the 50kg free class on Wednesday.
With a victory, she would have become the primary Indian woman athlete to ever achieve an Olympic gold medal.
However, Phogat was taken out of the pull on the day of the competition because he had weighed in excess of the 50kg limit.
The wrestler claimed in a heartfelt message posted on X ( formerly Twitter ) on Thursday that she no longer had the strength to continue.
” Wrestling won and I lost. My goals are shattered”, she wrote.
” Goodbye wrestling 2001-2024. I’ll get forever grateful to everyone. I am sorry”.
ReutersA three-time Gymnast, Phogat has won three Commonwealth Games golds, two World Championships copper medals and one Eastern Games gold medal.
In 2021, she was even crowned the Asiatic Champion.
Without her disqualification, she would have won at least one silver medal in the Olympic ultimate, making her the first female American wrestler to do so earlier this week. The only other feminine fighter to bring home an Olympic medal for India was Sakshi Malik, who had also captured a bronze medal at Rio 2016.
One of the biggest irritates at the Games thus far came when Phogat defeated Japan’s reigning world champion Yui Susaki.
“Vinesh Phogat is India’s biggest, bravest, boldest Olympian. We are lucky to have her,” wrote sports writer Sharda Ugra in ESPN after she defeated Susaki.
For the competition, Phogat reportedly spent time in the bath and apparently starved herself for a month. In the previous two Games, she had competed in the 53kg type. The boxer reportedly struggled to meet the fat necessity during her Olympic qualifiers as well because this was her first competition in the 50 kg category.
The Court of Arbitration for Sports ( CAS ) has heard Phogat’s appeal regarding her Olympic finals disqualification and hopes to win a pair of silver medals.
At the Olympic Games, Phogat has never suffered a loss before.
She had been favored for the prize at Rio 2016 before dislocating her right leg halfway through the quarter-final match. In India, images of her writhing in pain while being stretched on the blanket had broken hearts.
Getty ImagesAfter being eliminated in the next round of the competition, the boxer claimed that after Tokyo 2021, she experienced unfair condemnation for her performance.
In an editorial in the Indian Express newspaper decades after the game, she had written,” I was alone… All outside is treating me like a dead thing.”
” I do n’t know when I will return”, she had said.
” Maybe I wo n’t. With that destroyed leg [at Rio 2016], I think I should have had better luck. I had something to right. Then my brain is no broken, but I’m really broken”.
She did return – “one more shot,” as she called it – and went on to win a bronze at the World Championships in 2022.
As well as being a vocal critic of the discriminatory attitudes toward women in sports, Phogat, who is a member of a family of foreign female wrestlers, is a member of this family.
She was the subject of athletes ‘ months-long protest against Brij Bhushan Singh, the federation’s captain, who was accused of sexually harassing female sports, a command he denies.
The column made headlines worldwide, especially after the authorities detained Phogat and another wrestlers during a demo.
Getty ImagesInternational outcry was fueled by extraordinary pictures of her being loaded in a police vehicle and pulled by soldiers.
In 2021, she told BBC Sport how she faced sexist remarks growing up and overcame gender stereotypes to forge a successful career as a professional athlete.
Supporters predicted Phogat may have finished wrestlers, but her legacy and contribution to the game would endure in perpetuity.
In addition, India’s participation in the Paris Games was hampered by fighter Antim Panghal’s accusations of breaking punitive laws after trying to” sneak” her sister into the Olympic Games Village.
Despite what reports, her girl apparently broke into the building with Antim’s permission to enter, but the authorities detained her.
Panghal and her whole force will now leave Paris.