How Aman Sehrawat avoided cruel Vinesh Phogat fate to lose 4.6 kgs in 10 hours to be ready for Olympic bronze play-off

Aman Sehrawat, on Friday, won the sixth medal for India at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the fifth bronze and the first medal in wrestling.

The Indian wrestler beat Puerto Rico’s Darian Cruz by a score of 13-5 in the men’s Freestyle 57 kg weight category in the bronze-medal face-off. The win also kept India’s streak at the Olympics alive, of winning at least one medal in wrestling since 2008.

However, nearly 24 hours before his Olympic medal haul, there was a sense of panic in the Indian camp, similar to the one witnessed earlier this week which eventually resulted in Vinesh Phogat incurring a cruel turn of fate.

On Tuesday, Vinesh scripted a sensational run to become the first woman wrestler from the country to reach the final at an Olympics, which included a win against world no. 1 and then-defending champion Yui Susaki of Japan in the opener. However, by the end of the day, Vinesh gained over two kilos of weight. The wrestler stayed awake for the entire night, jogging and skipping in a bid to lose weight. Her team even went to the extent of cutting her hair and drawing out blood, but the 29-year-old was eventually disqualified on Wednesday morning from the women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling final for being 100 grams over the permissible limit during the weigh-in for the gold-medal bout against Sarah Ann Hildebrandt of the USA. Based on the regulations, Vinesh was denied any medal at the Paris Games.

On Friday, Sehrawat weighed 61.5kg after his semifinal loss against Japan’s Rei Higuchi around 6:30 pm on Thursday — exactly 4.5 kilograms above the permissible limit in the men’s 57kg. The Indian camp could not afford another jolt and hence Jagmander Singh and Virender Dahiya, the two senior Indian coaches part of the six-member wrestling contingent, had a ‘mission’ in hand with 10 hours left on the clock for the weigh-in next morning.

How did Aman Sehrawat lose 4.6 kilos in 10 hours?

The process began with a one-and-a-half-hour mat session during which the two senior coaches engaged him in standing wrestling. This was followed by a one-hour hot-bath session. At 30 minutes past midnight, he hit the gym for an hour-long nonstop run on the treadmill. He was then given a 30-minute break, followed by five sessions of a 5-minute sauna bath.

Following the end of the final session, Sehrawat lost 3.6 kilos. He was then given a massage, followed by light jogging and a 15-minute running session. By 4:30 am, his weight had reduced to 56.9 kilos, 100 grams less than the permissible limit, as the coach heaved a sigh of relief.

In between this weight-loss session, Sehrawat, who eventually did not sleep after that, was given lukewarm water with lemon and honey and a bit of coffee to drink.

“I watched videos of wrestling bouts, the whole night. We kept checking his weight every hour. We didn’t sleep the whole night, not even during the day,” said coach Dahiya. Weight cutting is routine, normal for us but there was tension, a lot of tension due to what happened the other day (with Vinesh). We could not let slip another medal.”