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File image of Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat competing at the Paris Oympics in 2024. (Photo: AP)
Wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who suffered heartbreak at the Paris Olympics before moving into politics last year, has confirmed that she will continue to wrestle and will try and compete for India at the Los Angeles Olympics in the USA in three years’ time. Vinesh said that her newborn son will act as her biggest supported as she starts her quest to compete at the LA Olympics.
“People kept asking if Paris (Olympics) was the end. For a long time, I didn’t have the answer. I needed to step away from the mat, from the pressure, from the expectations, even from my own ambitions. For the first time in years, I allowed myself to breathe I took time to understand the weight of my journey the highs, the heartbreaks, the sacrifices, the versions of me the world never saw. And somewhere in that reflection, I found the truth, I still love this sport. I still want to compete,” Vinesh wrote in a post on social media on Friday.
Vinesh continued: “In that silence, I found something I’d forgotten the fire never left. It was only buried under exhaustion and noise. The discipline, the routine, the fight… it’s in my system. No matter how far I walked away, a part of me stayed on the mat. So here I am, stepping back toward LA28 with a heart that’s unafraid and a spirit that refuses to bow. And this time, I’m not walking alone my son is joining my team, my biggest motivation, my little cheerleader on this road to the LÀ Olympics.”
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Vinesh had made it to the final of the 50 kg women’s wrestling event at Paris Olympics, but on the day of the final against USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt, she failed to make weight. That not only prevented her from competing in the final, but also meant that she would be disqualified from the event itself. Vinesh had knocked on the doors of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal the decision. But that too was turned down. Former Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra called it the “most brutal day in India’s Olympic history.”
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