By Prarthana Hazarika
New Delhi, Sept 11: Vinesh Phogat may have lost her immediate battle to compete in the 2026 Senior World Championships selection trials, but her case has opened a much bigger debate—one that goes beyond wrestling, selection criteria and even motherhood.
Should sporting rules be applied rigidly in every circumstance, or should selection committees have the discretion to recognise exceptional cases and give elite athletes a genuine opportunity to prove themselves?
Veteran sports journalist and author Nooris Pritam believes the Vinesh Phogat episode raises precisely that question.
“For a moment, leave aside the pregnancy bit and her post-motherhood re-entry to wrestling,” Pritam said. “Whether it is the wrestling federation or any other federation, rules in sport are there to offer a fair chance to an athlete to bring out his or her optimum potential.”
But, he argues, rules cannot become a substitute for sporting judgement.
“If we start taking every such case to the court, it will create problems no end. And this is what is happening in India these days,” he said.
Pritam was particularly critical of a system where selection committees may appear powerless once eligibility criteria are invoked.
“Vinesh is not a criminal that you need the law of the land to handle her case. She is one of the finest women wrestlers India has produced in recent times,” he said.
“If we go strictly by the rules, then why do we have selection committees? Any petty clerk can read the rules and criteria and select the team. The selection committee, if it works fairly, is there to handle such cases.”
The Vinesh episode has also brought motherhood and elite sport into sharper focus. Vinesh became a mother in July 2025 and sought a fair and structured pathway to return to competitive wrestling.
For Pritam, the sporting establishment needs a much deeper understanding of what an athlete goes through during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum recovery.
“I am sure the Wrestling Federation has no clue what a woman endures during the course of nine months of pregnancy. It is even harder than her training schedules,” he said.
He also pointed to the history of Indian women athletes who successfully returned to competition after motherhood.
“This is not the first time that an Indian athlete is trying to make a comeback after becoming a mother. Middle-distance stars such as Jalajanathan, Shiny Wilson and many others have done extremely well—in some cases even better—after becoming mothers.”
Pritam believes the issue needs to move beyond sport and into public policy and awareness.
“The Indian Medical Council, the Ministry of Women and Child Development and other women’s organisations should come forward and support Vinesh and make it mandatory for all federations to attend clinics and workshops to drill this vital information regarding women athletes into their heads,” he said.
And then comes his most provocative argument.
“Rules are there to be broken, provided you are honest.”
Pritam illustrated his point with a fascinating episode from Indian athletics history involving middle-distance runner Sriram Singh.
Ahead of the 1970 Asian Games in Bangkok, Sriram was not part of the coaching camp at Patiala and was training in Delhi with his personal coach, the late Mohammad Ilyas Babar. He was subsequently not allowed to take part in the final trials in Delhi.
The Athletics Federation of India was adamant.
But Delhi runners staged a protest run on Rajpath, wearing black armbands. The federation eventually relented and allowed Sriram to compete.
The decision proved transformational.
Sriram defeated defending Asian Games champion B.S. Barua in the trials, went to the Asian Games and returned with a silver medal. He subsequently won Asian Games gold at Tehran in 1974 and Bangkok in 1978 and produced a historic seventh-place finish in the 800m at the Montreal Olympics.
“One broken crazy rule gave India several gold medals in Asia,” Pritam said.
For him, that is the lesson Indian sport must not forget.
The Vinesh Phogat case, therefore, is not simply about whether one wrestler should have been allowed into one set of trials. It is about whether India’s sporting system can distinguish between following a rule and making the right sporting decision.
And motherhood, Pritam insists, should never be treated as a career-ending barrier for an elite woman athlete.
“As I said earlier, seven women in India have given better or the same level of performance after pregnancy,” he said.
Society, he believes, has changed dramatically over the past three or four decades.
“Now we are living in the internet age where information flows in a jiffy. Vinesh’s case should be highlighted so that it creates awareness in society—not just in sport but in society at large.”
His message is clear: motherhood should not become a penalty for women who choose to continue competing at the highest level.
“Becoming a mother for an athlete should not be treated as a burden at all. On the other hand, it should be taken with open arms, as a fit and athletic woman athlete can give future medal winners to the country.”
For Indian sport, that may ultimately be the bigger test—not whether its rules are followed to the letter, but whether those rules are capable of serving the athletes they were created to protect.
