Sakshi Malik, India’s Olympic bronze medal-winning wrestler, opened up about being acutely aware of her physique form, which underwent many adjustments on account of a rigorous coaching regime and weight loss program. In her memoir ‘Witness’, co-authored by sports activities journalist Jonathan Selvaraj, Sakshi mentioned she was so acutely aware of her muscular arms that she prevented carrying sleeveless attire.
Wrestler Sakshi Malik(PTI)
“The one style of clothing I avoided wearing was anything that bared my arms. I was always conscious that I had very muscular, 14-inch-thick biceps. They were prominent even by wrestling standards and they looked massive in comparison to the arms of the skinny girls I’d see on film sets in Mumbai. I always felt my arms and hands looked weird. They looked like what I thought men’s arms and hands did,” she wrote.
Sakshi, who gained bronze in ladies’s 58kg wrestling on the Rio Olympics in 2016, defined how a feminine wrestler’s physique might be completely different from most girls’s our bodies. “Our wrestler bodies are built very different from most women’s bodies. We develop very strong muscles in our arms and back, thanks to all the rope climbs and pull-ups, while our waist is naturally very narrow, since we have to maintain a low body-fat percentage. It’s the combination of the two that gives us that characteristic V-shaped upper body, like that of boys.
“Whereas all ladies wrestlers have torsos with some definition, it’s much less outstanding for some. Vinesh has extra of what we think about a sometimes female physique form. Her cousins Sangeeta and Geeta too don’t have very outstanding V-shaped torsos. They each have heavier hips and comparatively leaner arms. That wasn’t the case with me,” Sakshi wrote.
One of the three faces – Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia being the others – of the wrestlers’ protest, Sakshi narrated how she often received comments from fellow wrestlers about her broad arms.
“I typically wished I had extra of what we think about a girly form. As a teen, I’d typically complain to God, “You gave me such a good body, but did you have to give me such big arms?”
“It didn’t help my self-image much either when other girls at the wrestling camp would comment on my arms. They’d say I had such heavy arms that I’d be able to exhaust my opponents by just hand-wrestling them (chala chala ke behosh kar denge). It wasn’t just Indians. Once when I was overseas at a training camp, an Italian wrestler pointed to my arms and gave me a big thumbs-up, saying “Hey big arms!”
“He really meant it as a praise, however I felt very awkward about it. My arms have been certainly excellent for wrestling, however they didn’t make me really feel very female. I didn’t really feel assured in any respect about how I regarded,” Sakshi added.