Everyone outside is treating me like I am a dead thing, says Vinesh Phogat

Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat is a World Championship bronze medallist from 2019. She contented to land a medal at Tokyo. She has won the Asian Games in 2018 and won gold medals at Istanbul, Poland, Rome, Ukraine and Asian Championships since 2019 to head into the Olympics as a strong contender.  However, she wasn't successful to beat Vanesa KaladzinsKaya in the quarterfinals at Rio. 

Her sports spirit was ruined even before she landed in Tokyo, after desperate pleas for a dedicated physio were denied. She had been assigned a physio who guided the Shooting team. Vinesh struggled to advance in the draw. When she returned, the Wrestling Federation of India, has slapped a temporary ban on her for “not staying with the team”. The wrestler who has medals at all the Majors except the Olympics is unsure if she wants to continue in a sport which she loves but has severely affected her mental health.

Wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who faced heartbreak at the Olympics, wrote down her tearful thoughts. 

"I feel like I am sleeping in a dream and nothing has even begun. I am blank. I don’t know what is happening in life. For the last one week, so much has been going on inside me. It’s a story of two hearts, two minds. I have given everything to wrestling and now is the right time to leave. But on the other hand, by chance I leave and don’t fight, it’ll be a bigger loss for me.

Right now, I really want to focus on my family. But everyone outside is treating me like I am a dead thing. They write anything, they do…. I knew that in India, you fall as fast as you rise. One medal (lost) and everything is finished. 

Forget wrestling, let a person be normal. Fellow athletes don’t ask you what went wrong, they tell you what I did wrong. I am shocked that they form their own perspective. Atleast ask me what happened to me on the mat. Why are you putting words in my mouth that I felt a certain way. I didn’t. Sorry. 

I was on that mat. I know what I felt and what I didn’t. No one knows it better than me. If what you think you saw was actually how things were, then you could explain the entire meaning of life.

I don’t care about the world. But they still try to break me. I want to analyse my loss. After Rio, I cared about going back to the mat when everyone said I was finished. Why is Tokyo not my decision?

At the Olympics, no athlete is not under pressure. I was also under pressure in Tokyo, in Rio. But I know how to handle it. I could not do it in Rio but here I did. And I will do it again. Vinesh did not lose because of pressure. Before passing judgments, just ask the athlete what went wrong. 

I was okay in Tokyo. I prepared for the humidity, I had salt capsules, I drank electrolytes. I just wished this problem would not arise. But when it rains, it pours.

I had a concussion in 2017, since then I have suffered from it. Things become blurry. It has gone down a lot but when my head strikes on anything, it comes back.

Maybe it was that. Maybe it was the blood pressure. Maybe the weight cut. I’m used to salt capsules. They helped a lot. But they did not work in Tokyo where I was alone. 

I was reducing weight. I was my own physio and I was the wrestler. I was assigned a physio from the shooting team. She did not understand my body. My sport has very specific demands. She couldn’t help me with what my regular physio used to. Last day, when I am reducing weight, am I supposed to explain things to her on how things are done in wrestling, or focus on myself? It’s unfair on both of us.

On the day of the bout, I was not getting the feel. After the weight cut, I warmed up, I still didn’t feel it.

I had not eaten the day before the bout. I drank some nutrition but I felt anxious. I woke up with a feeling of vomiting but I could not. I was in pain. There was nothing in my body. Ultimately I did vomit. On the bus ride to the stadium, I called Purnima (my physio) asking her desperately what I could do.