She stood a little more than five feet tall. Happy and smiling, she wore a blue tracksuit. Vinesh Phogat was confident of bagging a medal from Rio de Janeiro. This was a few months back.
Things are much different now.
The sports in which Indian athletes have been competitive, such as shooting, boxing, tennis and archery, have failed to fetch a medal so far. With wrestling and badminton being the only two sports remaining for India to open its medal tally and avoid a repetition of the 1992 Barcelona Games, Vinesh Phogat's shot at glory has suddenly attracted a lot of pressure.
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Coming from a culture with strict ideologies about gender discrimination, Vinesh has known some very tough times. Where she grew up, girls and women were treated as second-class citizens and 'honour killings' were common. Haryana has the worst gender ratio in the country, with 877 women for every 1,000 men, against the national figure of 940, according to the last official census of 2011.
The lives of Vinesh and her cousins were crippled by the waves of finger-pointing and harassment from villagers because they wore shorts and wrestled with boys. "You are a girl and you cannot play.” For in those days, wrestling was the preserve of men, and women taking it up was unheard of.
Being a woman wrestler, when she started out, it wasn’t easy at all. Not just from the perspective of the outside world, but also due to resistance from within the family. In fact, one of her close relatives pointed out that she could get disfigured and hurt her chances of getting married.
It took some convincing. And Vinesh was not one to give up.
Watching Geeta Phogat and other girls of the family wrestle gave Vinesh confidence, and she felt that by taking up the sport and being good at it, she could hope to secure a better life for her family. One afternoon, she plucked up her courage, steadied her nerves, and decided to give her heart and soul to wrestling. As time went on and she performed well, it was easy for her to break the barrier and be accepted.
A few years later, Vinesh Phogat is one of India's last bets for a medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. All those doubts which had resided deep within her all those years ago when she started wrestling have now been exorcised through sheer grit and determination. She has won laurels even against the stiffest opposition, and has sometimes gone through roller coaster experiences.
After her 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games success where she won gold at the age of 19, Vinesh has kept improving her success graph. Her bronze at the Asian Games and silver at the Asian Championships are testament to that.
Vinesh was disqualified from the opening Olympics qualification event that was held in Mongolia last April after being found overweight in her category by 400 gm. Although the Federation was hell bent on not giving her any more chances, she got one finally and proved herself. The 21-year-old beat five decent grapplers for the loss of just three points to secure an Olympic berth for the country in the last qualifying event.
Spending the last two years on the mat during evening sessions and running at the crack of dawn, it all comes down to a few hours for her.
There's a chance for the fairytale ending that some are still whispering about: a medal from wrestling and India. In theory, the likes of triple World Champion Eri Tosaka, Maria Stadnik from Azerbaijan and Sun Ya of China won't bother Vinesh much as she has overcome some mountainous challenges in both her professional and personal life.
The Phogat household will erupt in cheers when Vinesh will take the mat. The noise will grow louder across Haryana, surely echoing in many parts of India, when she will keep progressing. Let's hope the cheers are not drowned out till the semi-finals at least.
Needless to say, Vinesh’s dreams and aspirations are as infectious as her smile. Her modest nature and heartfelt expressions of love for the sport have helped make the younger Phogat a darling of the Indian contingent. But she will compete knowing that she is representing the nation in a sport whose rules half of the women in India don't even know.
But that won't deter her from trying to attain the ultimate glory. It never has.
Wrestling is still not the easiest thing to pursue in our country, but it is getting easier, more acceptable and more accessible to be a female wrestler in India. Can Vinesh successfully inspire the youngsters for a better life through wrestling, by becoming India's first medalist at the Rio Games?
