At a time when the wrestling world was in turmoil following Vinesh Phogat's disqualification from the Paris Olympics 2024, Sarah Hildebrandt, against whom Vinesh was supposed to fight for the women's 50kg gold on Wednesday night, was going through an emotional battle of her own. It was the most unusual day for her. When Vinesh was disqualified for being overweight by 100 gm in the mandatory weigh-in of wrestlers on match day, Hildebrandt thought the gold medal was hers without even playing the final.

An hour later, her celebrations were cut short. Hildebrandt was informed that she would have to take on Yusneylis Guzman Lopez of Cuba to win the gold medal. Guzman Lopez, who had lost to Vinesh Phogat in a semifinal, was moved up from a bronze medal match.

“There was a lot of celebrating," the 30-year-old Hildebrandt said. "It was very strange. ‘Oh my God, I just won the Olympics.’ And then an hour later, it was like, psych, you did not win the Olympics. I was like, ‘Oh, this is very weird.’ So there had to be a reset.”

Hildebrandt eventually got the elusive prize after beating Guzman Lopez 3-0 in the championship match, becoming the fourth US woman to win a wrestling gold medal.

Empathaising with Vinesh Phogat, The Olympic champion revealed that she also uses different measures to reduce weight to pass the weigh-in process on the day of her matches. “As a big weight cutter myself, yeah, I feel for her," Hildebrandt said. “She had an amazing day yesterday, did an insane feat and, you know, I don’t think she saw that happening, ending her Olympics like that. So, for sure, my heart goes out to her. I think she’s an amazing competitor, an amazing wrestler and person.”

Reducing weight is a common practice in wrestling as athletes mostly compete in weight categories lower than their body weight to gain strength advantage.

Unfortunately, Vinesh, who announced her retirement on Thursday, couldn't reduce the excess weight on Wednesday morning. After three wins on Tuesday, she reached the finals of the 50-kilogram category. Measures such as cutting Phogat’s hair weren’t enough to shed the necessary weight. Team India said Phogat was 100 grams — about a fifth of a pound — over the weight limit.

Phogat, who stunned four-time world and defending Olympic champion Yui Susaki of Japan in the first of her three matches on Tuesday, would have been the first women’s wrestler from India to compete for a gold medal. Instead, she left empty-handed.

Susaki eventually earned a bronze medal with a 10-0 win over Oksana Livach of Ukraine.

Hildebrandt, a bronze medalist in Tokyo, said her craziest wrestling experience before Wednesday was a power outage that caused a championship match to start 30 minutes late.

“So this tops that,” she said. "But yeah, that was definitely the most insane thing. I don’t even know. Craziness. At a loss of words for once.”

United World Wrestling’s decision brought calls to add weight classes and shined a light on the dangers of weight-cutting.

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