DELHI: For Vinesh Phogat, 2023 was crucial in every sense. With just three months left for the International Championships and the Asian Games, the Indian wrestler would’ve been at the peak of her training regime. She calls it the “ultimate level”, the training where the body begins to move automatically, and you know what you must do in your bones.
According to the BBC, a two-time medal winner at the International Championships, this was Phogat’s chance to score the third.
But instead of physically and mentally preparing at a training camp, the wrestler has been living on a dusty pavement in India’s capital Delhi – where temperatures have crossed 42C – with “little sleep” and subjected to “constant noise” for the previous month.
Phogat is among India’s most accomplished wrestlers who have been protesting after they accused their federation’s major official of sexual harassment and abuse of female wrestlers.
The wrestlers, including Olympic medallists, demand the resignation and arrest of the federation’s president, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Singh, who the Delhi Police have questioned, has denied the allegations and called the protests politically motivated.
The protests – Tuesday marks the month since they began – jeopardise the country’s prospects of winning a wrestling medal in the upcoming championships, leaving the athletes distraught and broken.
They may end India’s dreams of another Olympics wrestling medal next year. The country has achieved seven Olympic medals in wrestling so far, seven of these since 2008.
“The whole country has pinned its hopes on us to get another medal – and we want to – but here we’re, sitting for 30 days with no resolution,” says wrestler Bajrang Punia, who won the bronze at the 2020 Olympics.
Every year, the World Olympic Committee earmarks some events as qualification events for the games. For wrestling, the International Championship in September essentially makes it a gateway for the Olympics, said Rudraneil Sengupta, author of Enter the Dangal: Travels through India’s Wrestling Landscape.
He adds that an International championship or a national game is also significant in their own right – not just as qualifiers – as they’re big events for any sport and player.
The athletes said they’re continuing their training – which began in December – at the protest site, but experts worry this might not be enough.
Sengupta said, “Wrestling is a physically demanding sport. You must be in extreme condition to be at the best level, requiring you to be constantly in practice.”
