Vinesh Phogat Retires After Paris Olympics Disqualification

Vinesh Phogat retirement: Vinesh retired from the game of wrestling a day after disqualification from the Paris Olympics hours before her gold-medal bout.
A dejected Vinesh Phogat on Thursday morning announced her retirement from wrestling in a social media post, a day after she was disqualified from the Paris Olympics 2024. Addressing her mother Premlata, Vinesh, a three-time Olympian, wrote, “Mother, wrestling won against me, I lost. Your dreams and my courage are shattered. I don’t have any more strength now. Goodbye Wrestling 2001-2024. I will forever be indebted to all of you. Please forgive, one coming with a heavy heart.
Vinesh was declared out of the Paris Olympics just a few hours before her historic gold medal bout. All her medal-winning performances were put off for failing the weigh-in. The Indian wrestler was 100 g overweight.
A day after scribbling history by becoming only the third Indian woman to enter into the final of an Olympic Games, the 29-year-old assured herself at least a silver medal. But she failed the mandatory weigh-in this morning—being declared overweight, with the disqualification process set in—despite the best of efforts by her coaches and other support staff, her nation’s Olympic association said.
The desperate measures she took, including going hungry, avoiding fluids, and staying up all night to sweat it out, forced her into being taken to a polyclinic inside the Games village due to severe dehydration. Innate desperation to make the grade also saw her try to cut her hair short to reduce excess weight. But nothing worked.

Vinesh appeals against disqualification in CAS. On Wednesday, Vinesh filed an appeal against her disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sports on the inhumane basis that she had been forced out for being 100 gm overweight during the morning weigh-in.

An ad hoc CAS division on the resolution, through arbitration, of any dispute that may arise during the Olympic Games or during the 10 days prior to the Opening Ceremony will be sitting in Paris.
The hearing will begin on Thursday morning.
The finalist in the bout was subsequently replaced by Cuban wrestler Yusneylis Guzman Lopez, who had beaten American Sarah Ann Hildebrandt.
Hildebrandt won the bout to claim gold and Vinesh is now banking on CAS to have a joint silver-medallist with Lopez.

The rules of admission of such cases at CAS are very clear. Before filing such request, the claimant must have exhausted “all the internal remedies available to her/him pursuant to the statutes or regulations of the sports body concerned.”

It stands enacted, except where “the time needed to exhaust the internal remedies would render the appeal to the CAS Ad Hoc Division ineffective.”

However, the international governing body of the sport, United World Wrestling (UWW) has written to the IOA that the weigh-in rule prevalent currently — which led to Vinesh’s disqualification — cannot be changed at this point in time.
“The appeal is nothing, no problem with India, but I have read the final result,” he told Indian reporters in Paris. “I really don’t see what can be done. The decision has been taken according to the rules of the competition. I really don’t see how you could reverse the decision,” UWW chief Nenad Lalovic said.