Wrestler Vinesh Phogat has moved the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal the decision to disqualify her from the women’s 50kg final at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Vinesh was disqualified for being 100g overweight at the time of weigh-in earlier in the day, leaving her medal-less within hours of coming close to an unparalleled gold.
The 29-year-old has appealed for a joint silver medal, and the issue will be heard by the court's special office here at the Olympics on Thursday.
With hours to go before her gold medal bout on Wednesday, Vinesh Phogat stood on the scale: the figures on display were horrifying.
For her 50kg category fight, she was 100gm overweight, leading to an automatic disqualification on perhaps the biggest day of her sporting career.
Dehydrated after three gruelling bouts on Tuesday, a desperate Vinesh merely had "small amounts of water," cut her hair, and stayed up all night working out to ensure that she didn't go over the prescribed limit for her weight. It wasn't enough, and no amount of pleading by the Indian officials to get her some more time to shed those 100g could change the rules.
So that's how it stayed, ending the 29-year-old's resilient run, during which she took down the reigning gold-medallist only to be beaten by her own battered body.
