Vinesh Phogat blames lack of strength for Asian Championship loss

Vinesh Phogat blames lack of strength for Asian Championship loss

no photo

|

Twitter

India’s star women wrestler, Vinesh Phogat has been of the opinion that after shifting up a weight category, her biggest challenge has been her lack of strength that cost her the bout in Asian Championship. However, she was happy with the bronze focusing on getting more experience ahead of Olympics.

With the sudden change on weight categories, which would be viable in the Olympics, Indian athletes were compelled to make a late adjustment in their speciality. While, for someone like Amit Panghal the change didn’t seem that big, as he immediately won gold on his debut in the 52 kg category, Phogat has found difficult to implement the same in wrestling.

Since moving to 53kg from 50kg, Phogat’s primary focus has always been on her strength and the Asian Wrestling Championship was the perfect place to gauge her new opponents. And although it didn’t quite go well for the Indian for she was defeated in the quarter-final, Phogat still managed to clinch a bronze in the repechage round. 

She was up against China’s Qianyu Pang, the player who had defeated Phogat 8-2 in the finals of the Dan Kolov ranking tournament in March. However, this time the Chinese couldn’t repeat the feat despite Phogat playing one up her category.

“In Dan Kolov, I had not trained well. These girls have insane strength and once again I realised I have really work hard. I am slowly getting there but I am way off in this category,” said Phogat, reported Scroll. 

“It’s funny. Wrestling has the same moves and techniques but you move up a category and things change a lot. The same techniques don’t apply and you need a new set. So my coach was shouting out instructions and I was listening to them. Only that my body was not responding. It did not work,” she added.

Phogat had got the right taste of that when she had faced 55 kg world champion Mayu Mukaida in her first bout. Before she could get a sniff of her opponent, Phogat had lost 0-10 in just over four minutes. Phogat attributes that loss to the lack of strength.

“If I had defended this much in 50 kg, there is no way I was giving up a single point. But this is completely different. That bout was one of the worst I have wrestled. I defended so well in that bout but still lost 0-10. The change is incredible,” she explained.

However, Phogat would now prepare with a solid plan after she has tasted the waters and was happy that she could finish the continental championship with a win.

“I lost to Pang. Hara diya na usko. Bas [I defeated her. That’s good enough],” she concluded.

Get updates! Follow us on

Open all