o gain something, Aman Sehrawat firstly needed to lose something.
When the scales of the weighing machine showed 61.5 kg on Thursday after his semi-final defeat to eventual champion Rei Higuchi, Aman had a bigger job at hand before taking the mat for the bronze medal play-off.
India’s youngest Olympic bronze medal winning grappler had to shed 4.5 kilograms of bodyweight in a stipulated time of 10 hours before mandatory second day weigh-in to qualify for the 57 kg bout.
By the time Aman was up on the weighing machine on second morning, he along with his coaches Jagmander Singh and Virender Dahiya had accomplished the mission — reduced 4.6 kgs to be eligible for the fight at 56.9 kg.
It was case being exactly 100 gram less than critical limit. If 100 gram became tragedy for Vinesh Phogat, it was a case of relief for Aman.
On Thursday, Aman had lost his semifinal bout against Japan’s Rei Higuchi around 6:30 pm.
There was no time to waste.