Having won medals at a number of events in
the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics, including bronze at the 2019 World
Championships and gold at the 2021 Asian Championships, Vinesh Phogat went into
the Games as one of India’s strongest medal contenders.

However, the 26-year-old was beaten by Belarus’
Vanesa Kaladzinskaya in the quarterfinals of the 53kg freestyle event, as she finished
her second successive Olympics without a medal – a freak knee injury in the
quarterfinals ended her campaign at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

While athletes like Neeraj Chopra and
Mirabai Chanu and others are being celebrated across the country for their historic
exploits in Tokyo, there is another side of the story that Phogat penned in a
coloumn for the Indian Express.

“I feel like I am sleeping in a dream and
nothing has even begun. I am blank. I don’t know what is happening in life. For
the last one week, so much has been going on inside me. Right now, I really
want to focus on my family. But everyone outside is treating me like I am a
dead thing. They write anything, they do…. I knew that in India, you fall as
fast as you rise. One medal (lost) and everything is finished,” she wrote.

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Phogat, who is the daughter of famed wrestling
coach Mahavir Singh Phogat’s younger brother Rajpal, said recent events had caused
her to consider quitting the sport. “It’s a story of two hearts, two minds. I
have given everything to wrestling and now is the right time to leave. But on
the other hand, by chance I leave and don’t fight, it’ll be a bigger loss for
me,” she said.

She said she wants to analyse her loss,
adding there could have been multiple factors involved, including a concussion
she suffered in 2017 that “comes back” anytime she hits her head on something. It
also could be down to blood pressure, the weight cut, salt capsules or the fact
that she was assigned a physio from the shooting team who did not understand
her body.

“My sport has very specific demands. She
couldn’t help me with what my regular physio used to. Last day, when I am
reducing weight, am I supposed to explain things to her on how things are done
in wrestling, or focus on myself? It’s unfair on both of us.”

The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had temporarily suspended Phogat for indiscipline and “not staying with the team” during the Olympics. 

But Phogat said that she was concerned that her team-mates might contract COVID from her and that she only wanted to stay away from them for two or three days. “What’s the big deal? After 2-3 days I was going to join them and even began training with Seema. So there’s no question of me not being a team-player.”

Phogat also spoke about her mental health,
saying that, “as an athlete, the mental pressure is so much that we are always
on that thin line. When it crosses, we are done.”

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She said the way everyone was “ready with
their knives” after her loss did not even allow her to regret her loss and that
the world was trying to “break” her. Phogat said she even finds it difficult to
cry at times, and that she has “zero mental strength right now”.

She said that while athletes like Simone Biles
is celebrated for her opening up about her mental health, she said something
like that will not work in India. “Try just saying that in India. Forget
pulling out of wrestling, just try saying that you are not ready.”

Phogat is now unsure of when she will
return to the mat, if at all she will. “I don’t know when I will return (to the
mat). Maybe I won’t. I feel I was better off with that broken leg. I had
something to correct. Now my body is not broken, but I’m truly broken.”