Her unfractured spirit ensured that the latest star from the Phogat stable did India proud
Injuries often finish off a sportsperson and the way Vinesh, the lesser of the famous Phogat sisters, collapsed on the big mat at the Rio Olympics was the worst way to be stretchered out into the sunset of a career. But just under two years later, the feisty wrestler from Haryana created history not just with her becoming smile but also by winning the ultimate yellow medal, the first ever for any Indian woman in the Asian Games. In large measure, you could attribute this awesome comeback to the strides that sports medicine and its availability has made to non-cricketing Indian athletes. But almost 90 per cent of the effort to return to the mat came from Vinesh's steely determination to succeed against all odds. life has been a difficult climb for this wrestler who lost her father when she was eight and struggled along with her cancer-afflicted mother. Brought into the sport by her legendary uncle and father of wrestler cousins Geeta and Babita only because the Olympic gold medal prize money set by the Haryana Government went unclaimed, Vinesh surprised all by her grit for the difficult game. If her bone had not cracked during the grapple at Rio, she may have created history earlier and on a much bigger stage, a fact buttressed by her easy first round win against Sun Yanan of China, the girl against whom she had broken her leg in 2016 at Rio.
The good thing about India is that stories like Vinesh's are no longer lone narratives. Athletes from the Indian hinterland have been reaching unimaginable heights despite physical, financial and cultural impediments, not to mention their inherent vulnerability to career-altering injuries which often make them fall by the wayside due to the lack of top grade sports medicine facilities in India at the local level and the largely unaffordable costs of treatment abroad. Herein come the changing role and attitudes of sports federations in India which have almost always deserved the criticism and disdain they have been showered with down the years. But as was the case with the legendary drag-flicker Sandeep Singh who almost lost his life and hockey career to a freak bullet injury that paralysed him, Phogat too returned to the mat with handsome financial help from her federation. Singh, given the medical money to treat himself abroad at a specialised rehab centre in Europe when all had given up on his ability to even walk, returned to hockey as Team India's captain, making drag-flicking his signature move. Phogat, too, gained muscle strength from specialised recuperation measures which now need to become broad-based if India is to make its mark in Tokyo 2020. Meanwhile, one can only congratulate Vinesh for reaching the Asian pinnacle in Indonesia.