Vinesh Phogat celebrates after beating Yusneylis Guzman in the Women’s 50Kg Wrestling semifinal. (PTI)
Vinesh Phogat’s story is of a winner on and off the sports arena. It is the story of an athlete, a wrestler, who has seen it all in a short span of 18 months. On May 28, 2023, she was pushed, bitten, and dragged on the floor while protesting against sexual harassment by the then chief Wrestling Federation of India. And last night, August 6, 2024, fortune turned when she bested her opponents on the mat and became the first Indian women wrestler to reach the Olympics final.
Vinesh did not give up, which would have been easy to do. She remained adamant about competing and winning for herself and her fellow female athletes’ dignity and their future. She stood up to the patriarchs of a powerful federation. The wrestlers’ protest, of which she was an active part, highlighted the everyday misogyny and rampant sexual harassment that athletes face, which went unnoticed for years.
Athletes sacrifice a lot in order to reach the pinnacle of their sport. Vinesh was mocked, trolled and written off. The entire machinery of sports and political establishments pushed her against the wall.
She was called anti-national, a casteist, a failed wrestler, and whatnot. In this entire fiasco, we, as a nation, did not come in her support. We failed her. But it did not.
Vinesh has been disqualified on a technicality, a few hundred grams kept her from a guaranteed silver medal, perhaps even the gold. But her victories remain. She beat the hitherto invincible Yui Susaki, among others, to reach the final. She is a winner.
We rarely watch sports from the athlete’s perspective. Teams and players become attached to a sense of national pride, which often turns into jingoism. Sport has a social context, and athletes are situated in it. It is precisely because of this connection with jingoism that athletes become instruments to achieve only one end – a place on the podium.
This myopia becomes more pronounced when a female athlete talks outside the sporting arena. When she fights against sexual harassment. If the pictures that appeared on May 28, 2023, did not disturb us, then we do not have any right to participate in her success and her story of courage.
On the mat, you could see the work she had put in. But her message and inspiration are beyond just the Olympics.
Vinesh Phogat’s performance in Paris has already ushered in a new chapter in Indian sports. And her victory is her’s alone. The federation and political class that attacked and abandoned her has no share in it.
The writer, a former wrestler, is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delhi
