Vinesh Phogat with PT Usha at the polyclinic after being treated for dehydration (IOA)
When asked about the process Phogat had undergone, Dr. Pardiwala expounded on what had transpired the entire night and stated that there just wasn’t enought time for them to shed the extra weight
The despair is yet to settle in, as the heartbreaking news of Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification from the Women’s 50kg Final has left the Indian sporting world in shock.
Phogat was disqualified on Wednesday from the Paris Olympics after being found overweight ahead of her women’s 50kg freestyle final, leaving her medal-less within hours of coming close to an unparalleled gold.
The 29-year-old had just scripted history the previous night by becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to reach the gold medal bout in her category. Before this morning, she was assured of at least a silver medal but will now be coming back empty-handed due to the disqualification.
When asked about the reason for her disqualification, it was stated that Phogat’s inability to make the weight class on time for the bout resulted in the unfortunate outcome.
“It is with regret that the Indian contingent shares news of the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat from the women’s Wrestling 50kg class. Despite the best efforts by the team through the night, she weighed in a few grams over 50kg this morning,” the IOA stated.
Nobody knows more about the immense effort that Phogat had exerted in her attempt to salvage her bout than Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala, Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Contingent.
When asked about the process Phogat had undergone, Dr. Pardiwala expounded on what had transpired the entire night and stated that there just wasn’t enought time for them to shed the extra weight.
“Her post-participation weight at the end of the semi-finals in the evening was found to be 2.7 kg more than the allowed weight. The team and the coach started off their usual process, which is of course limitation of water, no food. And you started with the whole process of sweating it out.
“Typically, you require some amount of time for that. But unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time. We had just 12 hours. So the whole night, the entire team, went ahead with this whole process of trying to reduce her weight, putting her in a steam and sauna, making her exercise and whatever was medically possible.
“We tried our best to try and get that weight down. When she couldn’t sweat anymore, we even had to go to some drastic measures like cutting off her hair…If we maybe had a few hours more we could have achieved that 100 grams, but we just didn’t have that time,” stated Dr. Pardiwala.
Now, once she was disqualified, then the question was as a precautionary measure we do need to rehydrate her and the best way to rehydrate an athlete is by giving an intravenous fluid. So we gave her a few intravenous fluids, and she started eating and drinking. She is perfectly normal physically and medically. We’ve got her blood tests done just as a precautionary measure…”
The shattered 29-year-old had to be taken to the polyclinic inside the Games village due to severe dehydration earlier in the day in a desperate attempt to shed the extra weight in time to compete.
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Read More: ‘Few More Hours, We Could Have Got Her Weight Down’: Chief Medical Officer Speaks On Vinesh