A few transcend their sport. Vinesh alone transcends the Medal
Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification at Paris 2024 is extremely disappointing. What has come after is bizarre and sadly predictable.
There are those out for blood — of the support staff, for not managing her weight optimally, and of the Indian Olympics Association and the GoI for not having the standing or the gumption to get the International Olympics Committee to overturn the decision. There are right-wing trolls, gleeful. There are opportunistic 'sports journalists’, promising to ask all the 'tough questions' ("tune in"). And then there is our elected leader, who after 20 months of silence woke up today to heap commiserations and praise on Vinesh. Undoubtedly sparked into action by the weight of having to make that dreaded congratulatory phonecall being lifted off his shoulders. The relief is palpable through the tweet.
At the end of the day, as bizarre as they may seem, the rules were known to all, well in advance. This is not bad umpiring, this was not bias, this was the inherent risk of the hyper-optimized nature of the sport playing out. After all, three other competitors have been disqualified in these games alone. The UWW want wrestlers to compete in their 'normal' weight categories, not go through extreme machinations to weigh in in the category below. Unfortunately, in such a competitive environment that is international, individual, Olympics-level sports, every edge is shot for, and the tactical race is to the bottom. The risk of it all going belly up the day of, is known, a part of the sport. The only way out that I see, if UWW is serious about their objectives, is to not limit weigh-ins to the morning of, but to insist that wrestlers maintain the weight they want to compete in for several months prior to the competition - the impossibility of the task taking the pressure off to even try. Operationally perhaps challenging to implement, but a WADA like anti-doping sampling-random audit regime may offer a way forward.
As for Vinesh, there are those who have transcended their sport, but I can think of no other sportsperson who has transcended the idea of achievement in sport, who has transcended the Medal itself. Only Vinesh. Of and for India.