Credit: X
Coach of Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat, Woller Akos, penned an emotional note after the 29-year-old's appeal for a silver medal at the Paris Olympics 2024 was turned down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Phogat reached the gold match in the 50kg Freestyle wrestling event at the Summer Games. But ahead of the final, the Asian Games gold medallist was disqualified after being overweight by 100 grams.
Phogat appealed to receive a silver medal for reaching the gold match. But in the aftermath of her disqualification, Phogat's team including Woller Akos received a lot of criticism for failing to help the wrestler to maintain weight.
Only remember thinking that she might die: Woller Akos
The Hungarian, via a social media post on Thursday, shared the team did everything possible before the second-day weigh-in so that the wrestler could qualify for the gold-medal bout. In a Facebook post in Hungarian, which he later took down, Akos wrote, "After the semi-final, 2.7 kg of excess weight was left; we exercised for one hour and twenty minutes, but 1.5 kg still remained. Later, after 50 minutes of sauna, not a drop of sweat appeared on her."
"There was no choice left, and from midnight to 5:30 in the morning, she worked on different cardio machines and wrestling moves, about three-quarters of an hour at one go, with two-three minutes of rest. Then she started again. She collapsed, but somehow we got her up, and she spent an hour in the sauna. I don’t intentionally write dramatic details, but I only remember thinking that she might die," Akos wrote.
