One hundred grams of solitude: Vinesh Phogat’s Olympic twist of fate

Paris Olympics 2024: Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from the Women’s Wrestling 50 kg contest, for weighing 100 grams more than the class limit. (Image credit: @TrendXNow/X)

Did she wear too many clothes? Should she have shaved her hair? Perhaps she could have removed an earring, extracted a wisdom tooth or clipped her toenails? The disqualification of wrestler Vinesh Phogat at the Paris Olympics for a moment turned us into mathematicians of ridiculous proportions. But when we look beyond the ‘weight required 50 kg; weighed 100 grams more’, we realise it is us who cannot count. For Phogat brought us this close to a dream – how many can do that?

A straightforward win or gleaming medals are, at the end of the day, only a vicarious thrill for the Indians back home who would like to brag about their country to each other. But a near-miss, ah, that’s another story. Full of pathos and irony, about lost chances and the very human predicament of almost making it. Which is what happens to the best of us most of the time.

Till Vinesh Phogat was disqualified, she was the fantasy. What we wanted to be. Numero uno. We decided that was just what we pre-ordered as an August-15 gift for ourselves: as many medals the Olympics teams can shower on us. Independence Day has gone from a ‘British bhagao’ slogan from 1947 to a routine school function day in our growing-up days to a Hollywood hit film by that name to our sportspeople in Paris for the Olympics. It is patriotic, we think, to want more in international forums.

The Indian Olympic Association said: ‘It is with regret that the Indian contingent shares news of the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat from the Women’s Wrestling 50 kg class. Despite the best efforts by the team through the night, she weighed in a few grams over 50 kg this morning.’ Apparently, she jogged, skipped and cycled to the point of dizziness. Every Indian was waiting for the gold, silver or bronze, to be a Phogat fan. We were waiting for an adrenaline rush, that one-time flushing of the face. Which has us gloss over her shock previous wins to get to where she is right now.

The fact is Phogat represents this nation more than the winners, because she was held back by a slender thread, by only 100 grams, a mere whisper. Not a lack of hard work, talent or skill. In the long run that should be the moral of this particular story. Not coming first or second, and garnering a vacuous applause; not being so far behind in the race so as to not count. But having the grit and guts to get there in the first place, in the arena, to fight it out in the real world. The self-important grin is secondary; let’s zoom in on the grimace of effort.

Phogat will always be the first Indian woman wrestler to reach the Olympics finals. Real glory lies in the trying. To be on the cusp of infinite potential. The more important gap is the distance between her and all the others she defeated to reach just here just now.