Ritika Phogat – the 17 year old cousin of renowned Phogat sisters allegedly committed suicide on the night of March 15 (Monday) in Haryana’s Balali village (Charkhi Dadri district). According to several media reports quoting Haryana Police, Ritika took the extreme step at his uncle and Dronacharya awardee Mahavir Phogat’s house after losing the final of a state-level junior wrestling tournament by one point. The championship was organised at Lohagarh Stadium in Bharatpur, Rajasthan from March 12 to 14.
Ritika hailed from Jaitpur village in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu and she was undergoing training as a wrestler since 2015 at the Mahavir Phogat Sports Academy in Haryana. It is being reported that Mahavir Phogat had accompanied Ritika to Bharatpur and came back to Balali with her.
https://twitter.com/PhogatRitu/status/1372412947406884864
The death of Ritika once again opens the discussion of mental side of professional and competitive sports and how it is often overlooked in pursuit of gaining brute and physical strength. A kid like Ritika who had left her home at the mere age of 12 and trained for over 5 years away from her parents must have been under tremendous pressure to burst onto the scene, collect the Olympic ticket and hopefully emulate her much celebrated sisters.
However, it is sports and like real life, it doesn’t always go according to plan. There are more lows then the euphoric highs that only seem to capture the imagination of any up and coming athlete. Even the likes of Virat Kohli, the current Indian captain in all three formats of the game and one of the modern greats had his fair share with depression and anxiety early on in the career.
After the disastrous tour of England in 2014 where Kohli could not best the banana-swing of English seamers, the world came crashing down for the youngster who had already won a World Cup and Champions Trophy in his small yet illustrious career.
Speaking to former England cricketer Mark Nicholas on his podcast, the Indian cricket Team skipper said, “I felt like the loneliest guy in the world,” whilst adding “It’s not a great feeling when you wake up knowing that you won’t be able to score any runs, where you’re not in control of anything at all. I just couldn’t understand at all how to get over it.”
Kohli further said that people suffer from those thoughts (depressing) and it is therefore necessary that professional help be sought out in those situations.
“Lot of people suffer from that feeling for longer periods of time. I strongly feel the need for professional help there to be honest.”
And if a player playing a game which probably brings the highest monetary rewards in the country could endure such a strenuous period, despite having the arsenal of best coaches around him — what stops it from happening to other athletes in different disciples of the sport, where forget having a sports psychologists, the coaches are not there to be found.
Even India’s only Olympic gold medallist in the 21st century, Abhinav Bindra has talked about how depression and emptiness came upon him, despite winning a medal that a country with population of over 1.3 billion dreamt about winning for a long, long time.
“I had won gold at the Olympics. It was also the day on which my only goal stood achieved. I was supposed to feel elation and joy; all I felt was emptiness…. There is no doubt that mental health is a global societal challenge and elite athletes are by no means immune and are at least at equal risk of mental illness as the rest of the population.” said Abhinav Bindra.
There are only four universities in the country where one can train to become a sports psychologist in India. Thus, the onus is on the central government to diversify the reach of this degree and actively engage psychologist’s with the Sports Authority of India which, in turn could help provide mental counselling to prodigious young talents like Ritika, who could have done wonders, if only she was guided and had a hand on her shoulders during her lowest pint of sporting career.