Battling period cramps, competing on empty stomach and a busted knee: Challenges Vinesh Phogat overcame to win World Championship medal

A body battered period cramps, a belly starved of food, a busted knee, memories of a savage buffeting concussion from the past, a bewildered opponent and finally a bronze medal.
Vinesh Phogat’s second World Championship medal – a first for an Indian woman – was so visceral in this soundless background din that she laughs uproariously thinking of the last few days. “I don’t know if I’m lucky to get the repechage chance, or an unlucky person to get my periods right before the tournament while I was cutting weight (little food and water),” she wonders, adding she’s relieved with the medal, and finally happy, a year after the Olympic nightmare.
The crazy string of events (“taqleef waale circumstances”) started with her getting her periods while in transit in Dubai on way to Belgrade for the Worlds. “Kabhi kabhi lagtaa hai, ladka hoti toh achha hota (At times I wonder it would have been better if I was a boy),” she jokes, wishing away the menace of menstruation, that female athletes have to cope with. “I tried period-stopping tablets for the first time, but it happened at Dubai, and I thought all the hard work of the past 10 months is gone,” she says.

! 🤼‍♀️
Vinesh Phogat of 🇮🇳 was at her dominant best clinching a second World Championships 🥉 with a quality show in the women’s 53kg weight division.
Catch all the action 🚨 🚨 here 👉 https://t.co/mmx6GXlR1D @Phogat_Vinesh | #WrestleBelgrade pic.twitter.com/TOizBcIpY8
— Olympic Khel (@OlympicKhel) September 15, 2022
The weakness and menstrual stomach cramps were compounded her trying to cut weight – dehydrating, starving and heavy-duty cardio to slash kilos, so the lack of recovery didn’t help ahead of her opening match where she went down 0-7. “I left everything on the mat, didn’t hold back, but sometimes the body just gives up. It happens to all women athletes. Koi koi bolta nahi, koi survive kar jaate hai (some don’t mention, some survive).” Vinesh didn’t talk. And Vinesh survived.
It happened at an Asian Championship in 2019. “I competed with periods and sustained two injuries then. So that was additional fear of injury.” Research says bones get brittle during monthly cycles and are particularly vulnerable to injuries. The fear of that happening wasn’t a curable worry. “I couldn’t recover in time and was drained out, and had lost hope,” she recalls.
Repechage demands you desperately hope that the opponent you lost to ends up progressing. But Mongolian Khulan Batkhuyag trailed 0-6 as Vinesh watched. And then luck turned. “Main toh lucky nikli (I got lucky),” she chuckles, recalling how she kept muttering the Mongolian would effect a fall, and the next second, it panned out just like that. “Maybe God took pity, and rewarded me for all the hard work.” And the past hard lucks.
Her mindset had been positive based on efforts she had put in to overcome physical battles, and the early nerves at the CWG aside, she went in with confidence, against Kazakh Zhuldyz Eshimova whom she had lost to earlier in 2016. Her body sent her two dissonant signals – she felt it begging for rest after weight cuts and the periods, but she was buzzing with a competitive hunger that turned on her ‘beast mode’ in the bronze playoff. Her good read on the Kazakh’s game helped her stay sharp, where she had gone in blind against the Mongolian who she’d not faced before.

🇮🇳’s @Phogat_Vinesh wins her 2nd #WorldChampionship 🥉 after defeating Sweden’s Joana Malmgren 8-0
Great resilience #VineshPhogat after shocking 1st round defeat yesterday.
She has now also become 1️⃣st Indian woman to have won 2️⃣ World Championships medals in #Wrestling 🤼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/J0zpoWxKGz
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) September 14, 2022
Vinesh was almost waiting for the inevitable trip-up. “I knew the body would strike back,” she says in half-jest and half dread. It happened against Emma Malmgren. Bang in the middle of her first throw against the Swede, she heard her knee snap. Vinesh reckons the audible crackle scared Malmgren even more than her. “I think she got more scared hearing it, and I found her unbalanced after that. But my body was warmed up so well, I could go through with collecting points.”
The numbers read 8-0 win for bronze. “2-3 days of swelling, and then again 1-2 months of the knee. All over again,” she adds wryly. An elbow surgery after the Olympics sounds like a breeze in comparison. “I was so scared of everything else happening around, the elbow surgery hardly regered. I’d had a nasty surgery after Rio Games. Gandaa surgery, horrible phase,” she recalls. “This time I was so worried about other things, kaat do, maar do, kuchh boora ni lagaa.” Cut her open, sew her up. The elbow shrugged it all off.
Dealing with neurological troubles
One reason why the elbow didn’t fuss her was that she was dealing with concussion troubles that often blanked her out on the mat. “With bones, you can gauge on X-ray, with muscles, you can actually see swellings. But how do you explain feeling disoriented and blacking out when you can’t see a wound?” she says. The fear of what happened in the Tokyo Olympics constantly haunted her.
It took her consults with 5 neurosurgeons across India, a few chats with concussion experts from rug from Australia and South Africa, and finally, a calm line of treatment, instructed an army doctor, to nail down the issue. “The fact that the problem didn’t happen at CWG or World Championships, I owe a thanks to my team and all the doctors who tried to help me. I was dreading that would happen again,” she recalls.
She’s been on medication for a year now, after being steered the forces doctor from Punjab she consulted through her coach. “He guided with all the scans and treatment. We spoke on mostly Zoom chats,” she remembers, heading into it all gingerly. “More than the medal, I was happy that the incident didn’t happen again!” she says, very glad now. Most invisible has been her silent strengthening of her neck muscles, to try to prevent another concussion occurrence.
To the tea and temples now
After tending to her knee, Vinesh is keen on finding sparring and training abroad before the 2023 Asian Games. “I’ve started feeling the need to spar with higher level wrestlers to improve, and will hope I get that training exposure,” she says.
She intends to make a five-temple visit – something she’s wanted to do for a while. “Kedarnath, Badrinath, to start. Otherwise, I’m a very boring person, I don’t know how to celebrate. After that, I’ll train, but I can’t drop my fitness,” she says.

But she’s looking forward to some simple pleasures after the medal – eating food for example. “Last month has been an extra strict diet. Since before the Commonwealth Games I’ve not eaten properly. Everyone at home also knows I need to control and even drinking tea felt like a sin. So this time I told my mother: I want to come home and drink a good cup of chai properly. For a few weeks, I’ll enjoy chai without guilt.” And chuckle at 50 shades of luck (and un-luck) regularly strewn in her path.