Vinesh Phogat’s stunning disqualification from the gold medal bout at the Paris Olympics was among the most significant developments for the Indian contingent at the Games. At her second weigh-in ahead of the gold medal bout, the wrestler was found to be 100gm overweight, which caused the disqualification. This led to an outpouring of sympathy from much of the country and from the wrestling world at large.
Vinesh retired from the sport in the immediate aftermath of the disqualification and, after failing in her attempt to appeal against the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) returned to India where she received a hero’s welcome. However, London Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt has now said that Vinesh should have, in fact, apologised to the country for missing out on the medal.
“If someone gets disqualified at the Olympics, the first thing they should do is apologise to the entire country for their mistake and for the loss of a medal. Instead, it was made out to be a conspiracy,” he said while speaking at the Panchayat AajTak Haryana 2024.
Vinesh was among the faces of the protest last year against Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who was accused by seven female wrestlers of sexual harrasment in an FIR. Since returning from Paris, she and Bajrang Punia, another prominent face in the protest, have both joined the Congress. Vinesh will be fighting the Haryana Assembly election from Julana.
Yogeshwar, who joined the BJP in 2019 but was overlooked by the party’s leadership for the upcoming state assembly poles, said that it was wrong that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was blamed for Vinesh’s disqualification. “The Prime Minister was blamed, saying there was a conspiracy to keep her away. Everyone knows that if someone is disqualified, whether it’s because of a 1-gram, 10-gram, or 100-gram weight difference, the rules apply the same. A wrong atmosphere was created across the country,” he continued.
Yogeshwar was the third Indian wrestler after KD Jadhav and Sushil Kumar to win an Olympic medal. “Even after the loss of a medal for the country, a new narrative was built, claiming that something wrong had happened to Vinesh. If I were in Vinesh’s place, I would have apologised to the entire country, admitting that I failed to manage my weight, and I would apologise for the loss of a medal for the country. But here, there are celebrations. The entire country is criticising the Prime Minister, and this tradition of celebrating someone’s mistake is very wrong in India,” he added.
“Even during the (wrestlers) protests, people were asked to gather in the wrong way. If we speak just about the Olympics, despite costing India a medal, a false perception was created that something wrong happened to her,” said Yogeshwar.