India in despair as Olympic wrestler disqualified from final despite cutting hair off (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 39 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] saltesc@lemmy.world 34 points 3 months ago

Bottom two classes...

Women's wrestling 50 kg (110 lbs) 53 kg (117 lbs)

50.1kg is definitely in the next class. She flew too close to the sun min/maxing while all other competitors managed fine, making them better competitors.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

If that photo is after the haircut, there was room to lose more. :( Shave it all down! There's your 100g.

[-] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 3 months ago

It would have been better to shit to lose 100g than to cut the hair

[-] Shard@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago

At that stage of a weight in, you've not even drank water the past day, there is literally not another drip of shit or pee you can willing force out of yourself.

[+] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -19 points 3 months ago

India’s Olympic contingent are devastated after one of their marquee athletes, the female wrestler Vinesh Phogat, was disqualified hours before her gold medal match for exceeding the 50kg restriction by the weight of a medium-sized banana (100 grams) despite even cutting off her hair in an attempt to fight for gold.

Yeah, that's kind of bullshit.

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 88 points 3 months ago

There's a weight limit, and she was over it.

Is it bullshit if a high jumper just skims the bar and it falls? Or a 100m runner loses by 0.01 seconds?

This is all about the best of the best competing on a strictly defined ruleset.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 39 points 3 months ago

Yeah as much as this sucks, and it really really sucks, I don't think we can really claim that it's bullshit or unfair. Every athlete has to conform to these standards, and they are very well known ahead of time.

[+] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -36 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's 100 grams. If it was a kilogram, I'd get it. Or even over 500 grams if they want to round up.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 49 points 3 months ago

then the new weight becomes 50.1kg.

or if you're rounding to the nearest kg, then 50.49 kg becomes the new restriction. except what if it was 50.51? it's just 2 grams more. what's the big deal?

[-] cynthorpe@discuss.online 12 points 3 months ago

Heck, 5 more kg is just a hand full of grams.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

That's a 20 gram difference.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago

I thought the next weight class was one kilogram higher. Is it not?

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

they're in the lowest weight class, under 50kg. the next is 50-53 kg.

Doesn't really matter where you put the line. it's gotta go somewhere and at that level, they're always going to be gaming the system to get an advantage, and any sport with a weight class, that means doing things to temporarily drop weight for the weigh in ceremony. (not eating, dehydrating yourself. getting as naked as you can without the judge eyeing you.)

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago

I’m afraid that the Olympics are one place you have to be strict. You can’t trust people to be honest or fair

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago

I think the Olympics can trust their own scales. At least I would hope so.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I’m surprised she didn’t avoid food or water for a bit. Maybe they miscalculated what the final weight would be

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

She did. If you read the article they had to give her IV fluids after failing to qualify because she was dehydrated.

I’m wondering if she just cut her hair, or shaved her head completely.

[-] Bookmeat@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago

Should have gone all-in and bled out 100ml.

[-] rooster_butt@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago

She did too. Still wasn't enough.

[-] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

She did. She was 2kg over the day before and went on an extreme dehydration and exercise protocol to try to drop down. She missed the cutoff but was so badly dehydrated that she needed IV fluids.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

she probably did. At that level, they want to be just as close to the restriction as possible while still being under. I can easily lose a kilo or two taking my morning piss.

[-] SuperIce@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

She weighed a couple kilos over before this. In order to try and meet the minimum weight, she didn't drink water for a day while exercising intensely to sweat a lot. She was so dehydrated that they gave her IV fluids after she failed the weigh-in. The weight category she tried to compete in was way too low for her.

[-] insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world -5 points 3 months ago

But she weighed in every other day too so she was the correct weight every day so far. One day she's 100g over and she loses her chance for a gold medal. That's harsh AF.

[-] Cypher@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

The rules are known to all competitors. It must remain harsh in order to be as fair as possible.

[-] barryamelton@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

???

She weighted 2 kilos more than allowed the day before, putting her over 50, even almost making it to 53 which would be 2 weight classes over.

They put her in dehydration, diet, "trash bag" running to get all sweat out, a Sauna in the morning of the weight-in (but she wasn't sweating anymore), they removed blood from her, and as a last measure, cut her hair.

She failed.

She needed IV injections right after the moment of the weight-in by the committee. She then was hospitalized and remains hospitalized. It seems that luckily she is fine.

Disqualification is there to prevent countries pushing their athletes through these ordeals, which have long-term consequences on their health.

[-] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

The rules are there to keep the wrestlers safe. Is 0.1kg over OK? What about 0.2kg? 1kg? I mean, how much of a difference can 2.2 pounds really make when wrestling?

The thing is they know the limit. They push it (too hard IMO) to eke out every advantage. In her case she was 2kg over the day before and went on an extreme dehydration and exercise protocol to drop weight. The protocol was so bad she needed to be immediately placed on IV fluids after the weigh-in to keep her healthy. The rules are there to protect the athletes who DIDN'T go overweight by too much the day before.

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024

73 points (96.2% liked)

World News

39023 readers

2315 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.