Nisha Dahiya was 60 seconds away from reaching the Olympic semifinal. She led North Korea's Sol Gum Pak 8-1 in their women's 68kg quarterfinal and was in complete control of the contest.
Then disaster struck for Nisha. She evaded Sol's attempted takedown and countered it by flipping the North Korean over for two points. It earned Nisha two points, but she injured the ring and little fingers on her right hand (she already had a heavily strapped right elbow); the bout was halted and Nisha received medical attention and then had her fingers taped.
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The break killed the momentum she was in, but she knew she merely had to play out the remaining minute. Sol, looking to capitalise on Nisha's injury, pushed her out of bounds and in the process Nisha injured her right shoulder (as the UWW website put it). From TV images it looked like a dislocation. As the medical staff rushed to her, Nisha, now in tears, looked helplessly towards at her coach, who screamed "Spray lagao [put some spray]".
The score then was 8-2, with 30 second left on the clock.
Once the medical intervention was over, Nisha, her face still distraught, said she wanted to fight. Another wrestler might have thought twice, but, with only a few second left, Nisha knew this was her moment. This was what she had trained for, for all those years, ever since she watched Sakshi Malik win silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. She could barely move her right arm but was determined to continue.
It didn't even need the remaining time for the fight to effectively end. Sol, who till then had been no match for Nisha in the previous five minutes and 30 seconds, floored Nisha with a takedown and rolled her twice for six points. The scores were level at 8-8 and Nisha was immobile, spreadeagled face down on the mat.
With 12 seconds left, Sol went for Nisha's right leg and executed a takedown. It was all over, 10-8.
All the years of toil, of 4am alarms, of thousands of uthak baithaks, of callous-inducing rope-climbing and never-ending sparring sessions, the severe dieting to cut weight - all that hardship undone by the cruellest of blows.
Nisha lay motionless on the mat, her face buried in the blue foam. As Sol waited, she took a minute to pull herself together and her face painted the picture: she just couldn't believe what had happened. Once up, she clutched her right elbow and walked off the mat, still crying unconsolably.
But she has been written off before. This was the same Nisha Dahiya who was wrongly pronounced dead in a car accident. This was the same Nisha Dahiya who injured her knee and lost the bronze medal play-off at the 2022 World Championships. This was the same Nisha Dahiya who was bed-ridden this time last year after breaking her collarbone during the Asian Games trials.
She's a fighter. And you can bet that she will return at some point to emulate her idol Sakshi and climb that Olympic podium.