{"id":2179,"date":"2019-10-01T07:50:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T07:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/132.148.16.13\/~indiafirstenewsp\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2020-10-16T10:52:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T10:52:34","slug":"all-for-the-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/2019\/10\/01\/all-for-the-games\/","title":{"rendered":"ALL FOR THE GAMES"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After her recent success at the World Championships, ace wrestler Vinesh Phogat is ready to have one more shot at Olympic glory in Japan next year<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Vinesh Phogat won a bronze at the World Championships last month and sealed a spot for herself at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is a far cry from a time when she wondered if she would ever be able to participate at the Olympics ever again.<\/p>\n

Vinesh was one of India’s biggest hopes going into the 2016 Rio Olympics. But she had to end her campaign in tears in the quarter-finals when a career-threatening knee injury forced her to be stretchered off the mat.<\/p>\n

“I never thought that I would recover and reach the Olympics again,” Vinesh said. “At the time I was injured I was wondering if I would ever be able to take part in another Olympics or not. This entire year was very difficult for me mentally. I was thinking about whether I did the right thing or not by changing my weight class so close to the Olympics.”<\/p>\n

Vinesh changed her weight category twice since Rio 2016, where she was participating in the 48-kg category. Since then, she changed to the 50-kg weight category and won gold at the 2018 Asian Games and Commonwealth Games and a silver at the 2018 Asian Championships. In March 2019, she decided to move up to the 53-kg category with an eye on avoiding injuries.<\/p>\n

Vinesh said that winning the Olympic quota at the Word Championships was important as it gives her more time to focus on Tokyo 2020.<\/p>\n

“I was always thinking that I want to regain the opportunity to win a medal that I lost in Rio no matter what it takes. Even when I would get tired in training I would think about the Olympic medal that I want and motivate myself to keep going. I used the frustration of the last Olympics and when I won the quota it was a big weight off my shoulder. Now I have to work on my unfulfilled dream,” she said.<\/p>\n

The bronze at the Worlds is Vinesh’s sixth honour in her new weight category but she believes that she still has a lot to improve upon. “It’s still a new weight category for me so there is still a lot of work left to do. I have won a medal at the World Championships but even then I have to improve upon a lot of mistakes that I committed because you don’t get any second chances at the Olympics. If you make a mistake, you are out.<\/p>\n

“Here if I had not made any mistakes then I could have won gold or a silver instead of bronze. So I don’t want to make them again at the Olympics and hence, winning the quota was very important,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I made a lot of technical mistakes which come with competing in a new weight category. I have to work on my strengths and be a little smarter with my game.”<\/p>\n

Vinesh knows that she will be going into the Olympics with expectations riding on her but she is not letting them bog her down. “I am very positive. Olympics is a big name and any athlete will feel the pressure. But people will have expectations from you only if they believe in you. I take this belief as a blessing,” she said.<\/p>\n

She has returned home as a World Championship medallist and the first Indian female wrestler to qualify for two Olympics but Vinesh has maintained a low profile. “I have silently returned home. I want to rest for a few days. A lot of people have congratulated me through messages and I am replying to them. But I don’t want to meet anyone right now. I am not keeping well too so I just want to rest for some time. The last one year has been a very tiring one. Now that I am through with it I want to take some time out. I’ll make a new start after this and this time it will solely be for an Olympic medal,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After her recent success at the World Championships, ace wrestler Vinesh Phogat is ready to have one more shot at Olympic glory in Japan next year Vinesh Phogat won a bronze at the World Championships last month and sealed a spot for herself at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is a far cry from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2189,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.testctsl.in\/indiafirstepaper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}