Hair cut, sauna: Vinesh Phogat's 'desperate' steps to reduce weight at Paris Olympics

Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Olympic contingent, Dinshaw Pardiwala, opened up on Wednesday, about the measures taken to reduce Vinesh Phogat's weight and said they had to take some "drastic measures," like cutting off her hair.

He said the whole team was awake whole night trying to reduce Vinesh's weight, and had they got a few hours more, they would have achieved the required weight category.

In a big blow to India's medal hopes from the wrestling arena, grappler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from the 50 kg women's wrestling event for breaching the weight mark.

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Vinesh was scheduled to take on the United States's Sarah Ann Hildebrandt in the Gold Medal match today.

Speaking to the reporters, Pardiwala said that after Vinesh's bout in the semi-final, she gained 2.7 kg more than the allowed weight.

He confirmed that after Phogat gained weight, the Indian wrestler's doctor started to reduce her weight by limiting water and food.

"Her post-participation weight at the end of the semi-finals in the evening was found to be 2.7 kg more than the allowed weight. The team and the coach started off their usual process, which is, of course, limitation of water, no food. And you started with the whole process of sweating it out," Pardiwala said.

He added they had limited time to reduce the Indian wrestler's weight, and the entire team was awake last night and tried to reduce her weight.

"Typically, you require some amount of time for that. But unfortunately, we didn't have too much time. We had just 12 hours. So the whole night, the entire team, went ahead with this whole process of trying to reduce her weight, putting her in a steam and sauna, making her exercise and whatever was medically possible. We tried our best to try and get that weight down. When she couldn't sweat anymore, we even had to go to some drastic measures like cutting off her hair," he added.

Pardiwala further said that after Vinesh was disqualified, precautionary measures were taken to rehydrate her.

"If we maybe had a few hours more we could have achieved that 100 grams, but we just didn't have that time. Now, once she was disqualified, then the question was as a precautionary measure we do need to rehydrate her and the best way to rehydrate an athlete is by giving an intravenous fluid. So we gave her a few intravenous fluids, and she started eating and drinking. She is perfectly normal physically and medically. We've got her blood tests done just as a precautionary measure...," he further added.

• Sports
• Paris 2024 Olympics