‘Remember thinking she might die’ – Woller Akos on Vinesh Phogat’s worrying state before weigh-in failure in Paris Olympics

Woller Akos, Vinesh Phogat’s long-time personal coach, revealed some heartbreaking details about the wrestler’s failed weight cut which led to her disqualification from the Paris Olympics. 

In a Facebook post in Hungarian which has since been deleted, as Indian Express reported, Akos highlighted Vinesh’s commitment to secure her first Olympic medal.

“After the semifinal, 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,” Akos wrote.

The Hungarian though expressed his satisfaction with how Vinesh progressed to the final, becoming the first Indian woman to reach the gold-medal match in Olympics.

“We will still be proud of the fact that our professional programme could lead to beating the best woman wrestler in the world and take an Indian woman wrestler to the Olympic final for the first time in history,” he added.

Akos also wrote about what went behind the scenes during the wrestler’s protest led by Vinesh, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia.

“Vinesh had pleaded with Sakshi and Bajrang to not put their hard-earned Olympic medals in the river. She begged them to keep them because they were special. But they explained to her that the journey was important and their performance was not defined by medals,” he wrote, according to The Indian Express.