"Main wapas aaungi"
Vinesh Phogat won't be making the India wrestling team for the 2026 Asian Games, but it certainly isn't for a want of trying. Even before a tight, chaotic semifinal loss to losing finalist Meenakshi, before the trials even began, Vinesh had won a colossal battle just for the right to compete.
On the morning of the trials, for instance, a formal notice is what greeted Vinesh, the essence of which read -- 'you will compete in 50kg'. Considering she weighed a little over three kilograms more than that, this essentially meant she wouldn't take part... except that Haryanvi girl from Bhilali didn't become the Vinesh Phogat by saying 'okay, fine, I quit' every time she faced an obstacle.
For this indeed was just that - a man-made obstacle, the latest in a series that the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had placed in the path of one of their most illustrious athletes ever.
The timeline of events speaks for itself:
Upon reversing her post-Paris Olympics retirement (after about a year and a half, including a maternity break) to take one more shot at glory, the WFI said she was ineligible to compete in the National Open Ranking Tournament earlier this month, citing a rather arbitrary six-month notice period for athletes returning from retirement.
Vinesh travelled to Gonda, where this tournament was being held (and home base for former WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh), making it clear she feared for her safety, but she wouldn't accept the ineligibility.
She wasn't allowed to compete, and on top of that they issued a 15-page show cause notice outlining disciplinary and anti-doping allegations.
Vinesh moved the Delhi High Court, who allowed her to compete at the trials (in the 53kg category, as she sought). The Court also objected strongly to the WFI describing Vinesh's Paris disqualification as a "national disgrace."
The WFI moved the Supreme Court against the HC decision, but the SC merely said, "she's made the country proud," and directed the WFI to allow her to compete in the 53kg category trials, as she had requested
Read all that and read the bit on that formal notice again. Subtlety isn't necessarily the WFI's strength... but in the face of it all, Vinesh held her ground and started the trials in her pet 53kg category.
Carrying her own food, scales and equipment, she went about methodically moving up the field. She started cautiously in her opening bout against Jyoti before three quick takedowns propelled her to a 7-0 win.
In the next round, she battled a ferocious opponent in Nishu - who raced to an early 5-0 lead. Vinesh had to dig into her vast reserves of experience to level things up before the score levelled at 6-6 after a failed challenge, Vinesh leading on countback. In the last forty seconds, her defence withstood immense pressure as she eventually won 7-6.
In the semifinal against Meenakshi, she started slow and the younger wrestler took advantage, leveraging her lower centre-of-gravity (Meenakshi is built a little like Sakshi Malik, shorter but stockier than Vinesh) and establishing an early lead that she never let go. Vinesh attempted a comeback with a sensational takedown, but by then it was too little too late as Meenakshi held her nerves amid pressure from the greatest women's wrestler India has seen, as well as the unprecedented scenes of chaos that erupted around the mat.
It may have been a loss but considering all that she went through just to step on a mat again, considering the psychological stress she must have been under, this is a win. And from the looks of it, just the beginning.
As she stomped off the mat after her semifinal, she made a quick U-turn, walking past Antim (who was entering the mat for her own semifinal), pointed to herself, the mat, and then to the front row that held WFI president (and key Brij Bhushan ally) Sanjay Singh, and declared... "main wapas aaungi."
"I will be back."
Knowing what we know of Vinesh, everyone would do well to mark those words.