India’s Vinesh Phogat has been disqualified from her Olympic final in the women’s freestyle 50kg wrestling for being 100 grams overweight, Report informs via MetroUK.
The 29-year-old, India’s first female wrestler in history to reach an Olympic final, was due to face Sarah Hildebrandt of the United States in the gold medal match on Wednesday evening.
But having failed to make the weight, Phogat is now not even eligible to win the silver medal, which means the women’s 50kg category will have just gold and bronze medal winners.
Phogat was approximately 1kg over the limit on Tuesday night. In a bid to shift the excess weight, she did not sleep during the night and tried jogging, skipping and cycling.
‘Last night her weight was up by 1kg. We and her personal support staff worked to cut it down. Unfortunately, it was slightly above the limit,’ Indian women’s chief coach, Virender Dahiya, told The Hindu on Wednesday morning.
The Indian delegation asked Olympic officials for Phogat to be granted additional time after she was deemed overweight by 100g but their appeal was rejected.