Coach reveals Vinesh Phogat’s alarming weight-cutting session before finals, says he thought she might die
India’s star wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s coach, Woller Akos from Hungary ercently revealed how horrific and intense weight-cut session the night before the final of the women’s 50kg final at the Paris Olympics 2024 was. In a post, which is now deleted, Akos said that he feared if she would die due to the intensity of the weight-cut session.
In a post on social media platform, Akos wrote, “After the semi-final, 2.7 kg of excess weight was left; we exercised for one hour and twenty minutes, but 1.5 kg still remained. Later, after 50 minutes of sauna, not a drop of sweat appeared on her. There was no choice left, and from midnight to 5:30 in the morning, she worked on different cardio machines and wrestling moves, about three-quarters of an hour at one go, with two-three minutes of rest. Then she started again. She collapsed, but somehow we got her up, and she spent an hour in the sauna. I don’t intentionally write dramatic details, but I only remember thinking that she might die.”
He further mentioned that Vinesh also had to be hospitalised following the disqualification. Despite having a massive set back, Akos shared what she said while returning from hospital? “We had an interesting conversation that night, returning from the hospital. Vinesh Phogat said, ‘Coach, don’t be sad because you told me that if I find myself in any difficult situation and need extra energy, I should think that I beat the best woman wrestler (Japan’s Yui Susaki) in the world. I achieved my goal, I proved that I am one of the best in the world. We have proved that the gameplans work. Medals, podiums are just objects. Performance cannot be taken away’,” he wrote further in the post.
It is worth mentioning here that the wrestler lost the chance to fight for the gold medal after she was disqualified for being overweight in the morning weigh-in on Wednesday last week following her stupendous performance on last week’s Tuesday when she stunned the hitherto unbeaten Yui Susaki of Japan in her first bout.
