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Aman Sehrawat Was 4.5kg Overweight After Semifinal; Here's How He Lost It Before Clinching Bronze

All the hard work came to a fruition when Aman won the bronze medal, beating Puerto Rico's Darian Cruz on Friday to become India's youngest ever Olympic medallist

PTI/RAVI CHOUDHARY

Aman Sehrawat weighed 61.5kg after his semifinal defeat on Thursday -- exactly 4.5 kilograms more than the permissible limit in the men's 57kg -- but in the next 10 hours, he worked tirelessly with his Indian coaches to lose 4.6kg.  (Highlights | Medal Table | Schedule & Results)

Jagmander Singh and Virender Dahiya, the two senior Indian coaches attached to the six-member wrestling contingent, now had a 'mission'.

They coul🐓d not afford another jolt after what happened with Vinesh Phogat, who is now fighting a legal battle against her disqualification from the women's 50kg final for being overweight by 100g in the ꦇsecond-day weigh-in.

The 21-year-old Aman lost𒐪 tꦯhe semifinal against Japan's Rei Higuchi around 6:30 pm.

There was no time to waste.

The 'missiꦛon' began with a one-and-a-half-hour mat session during which the two senior coaches engaged him in standing wrestling and it was followed by a one-hour hot-bath session.

At 12:30 they hit the gym, where💧 Aman had a non-stop one-hour run on the treadꦺmill.

The sweating would hꦺel💯p in cutting weight. He was then given a 30-minute break, followed by five sessions of 5-minute sauna bath.

By the end of the last s꧑ession, Aman was still weighing 900g more. He was given a massag♚e and then the coaches asked the Chhatarsal trainee to do light jogging.

It was followed by five 15-minute running sessions. By 4:30am, Aman was weigh💦ing 56.9kg -- 100g less. The coaches and the wrestler heaved a sigh of relief.

In between thesꦜe sessions, Aman was given lukewarm water with lemon and honey and a bit of coffee to dri🌞nk.

Aman would not sleep after that.

“I watched videos of wres꧋tling bouts, the whole ni🍸ght.”

“❀We kept checking his weight every hour. We didn't sleep the whole night,ꦰ not even during the day,” said coach Dahiya.

“Weight cutting is routine, normal for us but there was tension, a lot of tension due to what happened the other d🐻ay (with Vinesh). We could not let slip another medal,” said Dahiya.

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All the hard work came to a fruition when Aman won the bronze me🎃da🔯l, beating Puerto Rico's Darian Cruz on Friday to become India's youngest ever Olympic medallist.

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