Injured wrestler Vinesh Phogat speaks about her injury on Twitter

Vinesh Phogat had looked to be in pain during her Round of 16 qualification due to an elbow jerk, but was able to carry on and defeated Romania’s Emilia Alina Vuc to advance into the quarterfinals to face China’s Sun Yanan.

But halfway through her quarterfinal bout, she hurt her knee when she tried to turn around and defend her opponent’s move which was directed at her legs. She received some treatment on the sidelines, but had to be stretchered off after doctors deemed the injury too serious for her to carry on. Later tests revealed that the 21-year old had torn her knee ligament, which would require at least a week to recover from.

Her withdrawal from the event meant that her Chinese opponent, Sun Yanan, went through to the semifinals where she ended up losing to the eventual gold medallist, Eri Tosaka of Japan.

Speaking about her disappointing exit from Rio on her personal Twitter handle, she said, “If I tel u that I m ok it wud b lying to myself n all of u. Right nw I m hurt; both physically and mentally. I ll recover soon. Thank u all.”

After her gold medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and Silver medal in the 2015 Asian Championship held in Doha, Phogat had raised expectations of winning a medal for India at Rio in the 48 kg Women’s freestyle category.