Gurugram: Eighteen months after her heartbreaking disqualification before the finals in the Paris Olympics for being over the weight limit, wrestler Vinesh Phogat has announced her return to the mat Friday.
The 31-year-old Congress Member of Legislative Assembly from Haryana’s Julana constituency took to social media to declare she is coming out of retirement for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The announcement marks a reversal for the three-time Olympian who had walked away from wrestling following one of Indian sport’s most disappointing moments at the Paris Olympics last year, where she was disqualified for being a mere 100 grams overweight ahead of the final bout in the 50 kg freestyle category.
“People kept asking if Paris was the end. For a long time, I didn’t have the answer,” Vinesh wrote in an emotional post on X, formerly Twitter. “I needed to step away from the mat, from the pressure, from the expectations, even from my own ambitions. For the first time in years, I allowed myself to breathe.”
— Vinesh Phogat (@Phogat_Vinesh) December 12, 2025
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A Journey Through Turmoil
Vinesh’s path to Paris had not been straight, but full of turmoil. Long before that fateful disqualification, she had fought battles off the mat that had nothing to do with wrestling opponents.
In January 2023, alongside Olympic medallists and fellow wrestler Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, Vinesh sat on the cold pavement of Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for weeks, in protest against the former president of the Wrestling Federation of India.
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament, was accused by multiple female wrestlers of sexual harassment.
Phogat, along with other top wrestlers, slept under the open sky, enduring the vagaries of nature, and practising stretching movements in the open to keep them fit for the coming events and to brave the cold weather in Delhi.
By May 2023, frustration had reached a boiling point, and the wrestlers attempted to march to the newly inaugurated Parliament building.
What followed were images that seared themselves into public memory: champion athletes being detained, dragged away from the streets by Delhi Police.
In a moment of desperation and defiance, the wrestlers threatened to throw their hard-won medals into the Ganga.
Vinesh Phogat had gone to the Paris Olympics in August 2024 in the backdrop of these institutional battles and personal turmoil, carrying not just the weight of medal expectations but the burden of a fight for dignity.
From Olympic Heartbreak to Political Victory
Vinesh’s disqualification against the United States’ Sarah Hildebrandt on the morning of her Olympic gold medal bout stunned the nation, who were praying for her victory.
She was weighed in at approximately 50.1 kg, just 100 grams over the category limit despite her desperate attempts through the night to shed the excess weight.
After writing history by becoming the first Indian woman to reach an Olympic wrestling final, Vinesh saw her dreams vanish overnight.
As per United World Wrestling regulations, not only was she disqualified from the final, but all her previous results at the Games were also struck off.
She made an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for a joint silver, but it was dismissed, dealing her yet another blow.
She had defeated four-time world champion and Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Yui Susaki in her opening bout, a victory that was hailed as one of the biggest upsets in Olympic wrestling history.
Hours after the CAS verdict, Vinesh announced her retirement from wrestling.
Within days, she had joined the Congress party along with fellow wrestler Bajrang Punia, ahead of the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections. In October, she won from the Julana constituency in Jind district, defeating the BJP’s Yogesh Bajrangi.
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A Mother’s Motivation
Although politics, it appears, couldn’t extinguish the wrestler’s fire. In her recent post, Vinesh revealed that during her time away, she had rediscovered her love for the sport.
“I took time to understand the weight of my journey—the highs, the heartbreaks, the sacrifices, the versions of me the world never saw. And somewhere in that reflection, I found the truth: I still love this sport. I still want to compete,” she wrote.
“In that silence, I found something I’d forgotten—‘the fire never left’. It was only buried under exhaustion and noise. The discipline, the routine, the fight… It’s in my system. No matter how far I walked away, a part of me stayed on the mat.”
This time around, Vinesh won’t be making the journey alone. Phogat, along with fellow wrestler Somvir Rathee, welcomed a baby boy in July 2025. Her son, she says, will be her biggest motivation.
“So here I am, stepping back toward LA28 with a heart that’s unafraid and a spirit that refuses to bow,” Vinesh declared. “And this time, I’m not walking alone—my son is joining my team, my biggest motivation, my little cheerleader on this road to the LA Olympics.”
With this decision, Vinesh joins a select group of elite Indian athletes who have returned to competitive sport after childbirth, charting a path that combines motherhood with Olympic ambition.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)