She is a two-time World Championships bronze medallist, a three-time Commonwealth Games champion and gold medallist at both the Asian Games and Asian Championships.
A member of the famed Phogat sisters, Vinesh is also a three-time Olympian.
At Rio 2016, her debut Summer Games, the Indian wrestler made the quarter-finals but had to retire from her quarter-final match after suffering an anterior cruciate ligament injury while wrestling against the People’s Republic of China’s Sun Yanan.
Her campaign at Tokyo 2020 also ended in the quarters.
At Paris 2024, Vinesh Phogat reached the final of the women’s 50kg weight category after defeating defending champion Yui Susaki of Japan, former European champion Oksana Livach of Ukraine and Pan American Games champion Yusneylis Guzman of Cuba.
However, a technicality kept her from becoming the first Indian woman to compete in a wrestling final at the Olympics as Vinesh failed to make the weight on the morning of the gold medal bout and was disqualified.
Despite taking some drastic measures to cut down her weight the night before, Vinesh was found marginally overweight at the mandatory weigh-in.
In the aftermath, Vinesh had to be taken to a polyclinic at the Olympic Village owing to dehydration caused by the lack of food and fluids, which she restricted in order to cut weight.
A dejected Vinesh announced her retirement from the sport after the heartbreak and has since joined politics and presently serves as the MLA of Julana constituency in Haryana.