Vinesh Phogat announces return to wrestling, a year after Paris Olympics disqualification

Three-time Olympian wrestler Vinesh Phogat announced her return to wrestling on Friday (December 12, 2025).
In an X post, she said “People kept asking if Paris was the end. For a long time, I didn’t have the answer. I needed to step away from the mat, from the pressure, from the expectations, even from my own ambitions. For the first time in years, I allowed myself to breathe.”
“I took time to understand the weight of my journey the highs, the heartbreaks, the sacrifices, the versions of me the world never saw. And somewhere in that reflection, I found the truth, I still love this sport. I still want to compete.”
She further added in the X post, “In that silence, I found something I’d forgotten ‘the fire never left’. It was only buried under exhaustion and noise. The discipline, the routine, the fight...it’s in my system. No matter how far I walked away, a part of me stayed on the mat.”
Ms. Phogat said “So here I am, stepping back toward Los Angeles 2028 with a heart that’s unafraid and a spirit that refuses to bow.”
“And this time, I’m not walking alone my son is joining my team, my biggest motivation, my little cheerleader on this road to the Los Angeles Olympics,” Vinesh Phogat concluded.
A two-time World Championships bronze medalist, Vinesh Phogat is a former Asian champion, Asian Games gold medalist and a three-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist. Vinesh is the only Indian woman wrestler to have won gold at both the Asian and Commonwealth Games.
On August 8, 2024, Vinesh Phogat announced her retirement from wrestling a day after she was disqualified from the 50kg category Paris Olympics finals. The seasoned wrestler was disqualified after weighing 100 grams more than the permissible limit in the morning weigh-in ahead of the final.