America’s Sarah Ann Hildebrandt won the gold medal in the women’s 50 kg category at the Paris Olympics 2024. America’s Hildebrandt was to face India’s star wrestler Vinesh Phogat in the final match of this event, but on the day of the final, Vinesh’s weight was 100 grams more than the prescribed weight, due to which she was disqualified. Hildebrandt had to face the Cuban wrestler in the finals, whom Vinesh had defeated in the semi-finals. Yusnelis Guzmán López, who lost in the semifinals, received the silver medal, and Hildebrandt received the gold medal. After winning the gold medal, Hildebrandt said that she had not expected at all what happened to Vinesh.
Hildebrandt, who won the gold medal by defeating Lopez in the final, said, ‘I was prepared for chaos but did not expect such an incident.’ Hildebrandt, 30, who won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Games, said that she did not see Vinesh at the time of weighing and for some time she thought that the Indian player had withdrawn from the competition.
I started celebrating thinking that Vinesh had moved away.
Hildebrandt recalled after the final, ‘(Vinesh) was not there at the time of weighing so I was thinking in my mind, ‘Oh my God, this could be a possibility.’ Then, we got the news that she didn’t measure her weight and we thought she was out of the competition. So there was a lot of celebration. “It was so weird, like, ‘Oh my God, I just won the Olympics,'” he said. Then after an hour they started saying, ‘You didn’t win the Olympics.’ I started thinking, ‘Oh, this is very strange.’ So had to reset. I took a nap, woke up and it was like a dream.
Vinesh, who lost weight earlier this year to compete in the Olympics in the 50kg category, took several steps to lose weight ahead of the finals, including fasting, avoiding liquids and staying up all night to sweat. But this did not happen and Vinesh still could not bring her weight within the weight category of her competition and in the end there was so much dehydration in her body that she had to be admitted to a poly clinic in the sports village.
Preparations for Olympics 2024 were started in 2022 itself.
Hildebrandt also decided to drop down from 55 kg to compete at 50 kg, but she did so two years ago. He said, ‘Losing weight requires a lot of thoughtful education and discipline.’ “I actually started losing weight for these Games at the end of 2022,” Hildebrandt said. I used to think, ‘Whatever I do from now on, it will impact (Paris) 2024.’
