Vinesh Phogat launched a verbal attack on the Indian Olympic Association chief, PT Usha, accusing her of clicking photographs with her on a hospital bed during the Paris Olympics and politicising the matter without offering much help. After a cruel turn of fate, Vinesh, one of India’s top medal hopes, was disqualified from the women’s 50kg wrestling gold medal bout after she failed the weigh-in process by 100 gms.

Vinesh, who became the first female wrestler from the country to reach an Olympic final, had to return empty-handed. No amount of prodding, pleading, and desperate measures like chopping off hair and not sleeping the entire night was enough. She was found overweight and according to the United World Wrestling – the parent body of wrestling – rules, she was disqualified and all her results in the previous became null and void.

The extreme measures taken to try and reduce her weight exhausted Vinesh. She had to be taken to the medical facility inside the Paris Games village, where IOA chief PT Usha met her and assured all support. A photograph of their meeting was shared on social media, and it went viral.

Vinesh, however, said she got no real support from IOA and that the photo was taken without her consent. “You are on a hospital bed, where you don’t know what’s happening in life outside, you are going through one of the worst phases of your life. At that place, just to show everyone you are standing with me you clicked a photo without telling me and then putting it on social media to say you are standing with me). That’s not how you show support. What was it more than (posturing)!” Vinesh told a local news channel.

Vinesh said she was left heartbroken by the incident. “I don’t know what support I got there. PT Usha madam visited me at the hospital. One photo was clicked… Like you said, in politics a lot happens behind closed doors. Similarly, politics happened there (in Paris) as well. That’s why I was heartbroken. Otherwise a lot of people are saying ‘don’t leave wrestling’. For what should I continue! There is politics everywhere,” she added.

Vinesh joins politics

Even though IOA filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), a pain-stricken Vinesh announced retirement from wrestling a day after being disqualified from the Paris Olympics.

A few days later, Vinesh got another setback. CAS rejected her appeal for a joint silver medal.

A teary-eyed Vinesh returned to India to a hero’s welcome and joined the Indian National Congress to launch her career in politics.