Why the ruling against awarding Vinesh Phogat an Olympic medal is fair

Ask fighters what aspect of their sport they hate most and a large percentage will say it is the weight cut. You might think getting beaten up is worse, but that is compensated by being able to strike or take down the opponent and enjoy the crowd’s acclaim while doing so. The weight cut, on the other hand, is a debilitating fight against one’s own body conducted in isolation, with only trainers and fellow fighters to help.

Vinesh Phogat lost the battle against her own body before the Olympic 50 kg women’s final and was denied a medal as a consequence. This led to outrage among Indian fans, with commentators condemning the penalty.

Scroll echoed hundreds of commentators that Phogat’s performance “deserves the same recognition that it got after the three victories on Tuesday before the circumstances that led to her disqualification. She did win those matches fair and square. She did so by fulfilling the eligibility criteria and being within the weight limit, after all”. The same reasoning was used by the Indian side in its plea to the Court of Arbitration, which rejected the appeal on Wednesday.

The court made the correct ruling because it is misguided to assert, as so many have done, that the second day’s weigh-in ought to have no bearing on the first day’s result. To understand why this is the case, one must first recognise that cutting weight two days in a row, as wrestling in the Olympics requires, is considerably tougher than doing so just once. Wrestlers are physically and mentally exhausted after three grueling fights. Moreover, their body has made adjustments after the first weight cut, so the second is a higher mountain to climb.

Weight cutting involves dehydration to the point that a body is on the verge of requiring hospitalisation. Fighters do it because every gram of extra muscle is an advantage in weight-restricted combat sports. They want to hit the scale with the maximum possible muscle mass, which means depriving the body of as much water as it is able to shed overnight. After the weigh-in, fighters rehydrate by drinking litres of water, carefully calibrated by dieticians.

The rehydrated body, having faced severe trauma, now clings more aggressively to every drop of fluid it receives. If a wrestler cuts the maximum weight possible on the first day and then rehydrates fully, she will certainly not be able to cut the same amount again 24 hours later. In other words, wrestlers who weighed in at 50 kg on the first day and were adequately prepared to cut down to 50 kg again on the second day, could potentially have cut to 49.5 or even 49 kg on the first day.

A fighter unprepared for two legal weigh-ins, on the other hand, would not have been able to cut to 49 kg on the first day and therefore would have more muscle mass going into the first fights. This is why failure at the second weigh-in taints results of the first day’s fights.

It is easy to see how a tournament could be gamed if complete disqualification did not follow a failed second day weigh-in. A fighter who felt she had little hope for gold could come in as heavy as possible on the first day. This would leave her unprepared to make weight the second day but give her a significant advantage on the first, greatly boosting her chances of earning silver.

When I read about Phogat’s failure to make weight, my mind went back to her first bout, which ended in some of the most exhilarating moments of the entire Olympiad for Indian fans. Phogat was down 2-0 against the Japanese Yui Susaki, four-time world champion, defending Olympic gold medalist and unbeaten in international bouts. With seconds on the clock, Phogat bulldozed her opponent, almost Sumo style, in an attack that depended more on sheer strength than technique, causing Susaki to lose balance.

It is worth asking, surely, how much of that superior strength came from Phogat being significantly heavier than Susaki. The Japanese wrestler, noticeably smaller than Phogat, was fighting in her natural weight class and was certainly prepared not just to make weight twice, but to recover sufficiently after the second weigh-in to fight at the top of her form in the final as she had done in the previous Olympics.

Phogat has been heroic in battling a deeply corrupt wrestling association and a central government bent on protecting its own at all costs. It is incredibly cruel that a mere 100 grams denied her a crowning triumph in a career studded with major achievements. However, our anguish at her disqualification should not cause us to overlook the fact that the rules of competition have been framed sensibly and were applied fairly in her case.