Wrestling
Hero’s welcome for Vinesh Phogat
The wrestler was paraded out of the airport atop a vehicle upon her arrival at New Delhi on Saturday morning.
Vinesh Phogat was greeted with drumrolls and garlands at the airport in New Delhi on Saturday morning. (Photo Credit: Pritish Raj/ The Bridge)
Wrestler Vinesh Phogat arrived in New Delhi on Saturday morning to a rousing reception at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Security was visibly heighted in and around the arrival section of the airport with a horde of people, friends and family included, having gathered to welcome the wrestler from the Paris Olympic Games.
Vinesh Phogat returns back home. Grand welcome but tears in her eyes.
— The Bridge (@the_bridge_in) August 17, 2024
Chin up champion, you've made us all so proud❤️#VineshPhogat #ParisOlympicspic.twitter.com/uXVn3tlBaW
‘Country’s honour greater than gold’
Speaking to The Bridge, Premlata, the wrestler’s mother said, “we will feed her malai halwa and honour her.”
Vinesh’s mother, visibly elated, said that her daughter deserved gold but god had other plans.
“The country has honoured her and that is greater than a gold medal,” she added.
Wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik were amongst several friends and well wishers who were present at the airport to welcome Vinesh Phogat.
On Friday night, the wrestler, in a lengthy social media post, had said that the future “might never be the same again.”
In the post, Vinesh shared the challenges she faced as a child growing up, having lost her father at an early age and how despite that setback, she continued to nurture her Olympic dreams.
About the dreaded night before her finals bout, she said that she and her team did not surrender.
“We did not give up,” she wrote, while stating that “our efforts did not stop, and we did not surrender but the clock stopped and the time was not fair. So way my fate.”
— Vinesh Phogat (@Phogat_Vinesh) August 16, 2024
A come back on the cards?
She also wrote that “something might always remain missing,” a reference to how close she got to winning an Olympic medal.
“To my team, my fellow Indian and my family, it feels like: the goal that we were working towards and what we had planned to achieve is unfinished, that something might always remain missing, and that things might never be the same again.”
Vinesh did suggest that the fight inside her will exist for ever and for a fleeting moment, this came across an indication of a possible come back.
“Maybe under different circumstances, I could see myself playing till 2023, because the fight in me and wrestling in me will always be there.”
Forever the fighter, Vinesh concluded by saying that she will not hold hack from doing what was right.
“…but I am sure that I will continue to fight always for what I believe in and for the right thing,” she concluded.
