Asian Games 2026: Sanyal Collapses in Sauna Before Under-77kg MMA Quarterfinal

In my squared notebook, one page is written in two colours of ink. September 20, 2026, Nagoya. The first line, blue pen: “Roughly 30 minutes in the sauna. Dizziness. Vertigo. Cramps across the whole body.” The line beneath, red pen: “Loss of consciousness. A Nepali athlete woke him.” The man who lived those lines is not me. They are the account of Sanyal, an Indian MMA fighter drawn into the men’s under-77 kg traditional MMA quarterfinal against Mukhammad Nabiev of Bahrain. The fight never happened. Before the bell could sound, his body folded in heat with no crowd to witness it. People remember goals; I remember the sigh behind the net — this time the sigh came from a room nobody had time to log.

A bye that became a trap

Sanyal had a first-round bye. In any tournament that is a gift: one fewer fight, more recovery time, an opponent who has to arrive later. But a gift only pays out if the man receiving it still has the strength to spend it.

He was scheduled to meet Mukhammad Nabiev of Bahrain in the quarterfinal on the evening of September 20, 2026. The under-77 kg category at these Games weighed in the day before competition. For a fighter whose walking weight sits above the limit, the hours between the scale and the first bell are the entire budget for making weight. Sanyal chose the fast route: restricted food, restricted fluid, then the sauna.

Before that, he had spent more than ten hours travelling. His name was missing from the accommodation system when he arrived. Food before the cut was inadequate. When his body began to feel wrong, he called the president of the Indian MMA Federation directly. India’s Olympic Committee later issued an official statement describing the episode in gentler terms: “cramps and body aches.” It also ordered a preventive blood test, and the initial result showed no significant abnormalities. He was declared unfit, and together with his coach he withdrew from the quarterfinal.

Based on my experience covering fights, from the 19/8 stadium in Nha Trang to far smaller combat sports events, one thing holds: most weight incidents do not happen at the scale. They happen in corridors, in bathrooms, in saunas — places where nobody files a report.

What actually happens inside the body

This is where I want to slow down, because most readers hear the phrase “weight cut” without picturing what occurs underneath.

Fluid restriction and sauna exposure drain water mainly from the vascular space. Plasma volume falls, blood pressure drops, and the heart must work harder to keep circulation going. At the same time, sodium and potassium in the blood fall out of balance. That chain explains the recorded symptoms precisely: dizziness, vertigo, cramps, then fainting. Sports medicine has documented this sequence for decades; it repeats, and only the person enduring it changes.

The evidence is not a matter of feeling. A 2026 survey by the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that 79 per cent of surveyed fighters used fluid restriction to make weight, and 51 per cent had used a sauna. Those two figures say Sanyal’s method was no outlier. It is a norm that has been normalised in combat sports.

Then there is the kidney question. PubMed reviews show creatinine and blood urea often rise after rapid weight loss, and the rise can appear later than the first blood draw. Sanyal’s “normal” result is a good sign, but it does not close the file. After a fainting episode caused by acute dehydration, repeat renal-function testing is the correct standard, not an optional extra.

One more detail deserves its proper place: more than ten hours of travel and inadequate food before the cut leave glycogen and starting hydration lower than normal. The same sauna session, imposed on a body already running dry, becomes far more dangerous. To be precise: available information does not prove that the logistics failures caused the medical event. The confirmed causal chain is restriction plus sauna, leading to symptoms. The travel and food problems are contributing stressors, not a proven cause.

And there is a question few ask: if reaching under 77 kg requires a cut this hazardous, was his body suited to this division in the first place?

The contrarian angle: the system guards the scale, not the person

There is a gap between two accounts of the same event. India’s Olympic Committee speaks of cramps and aches. The sourced reporting from the Indian side speaks of loss of consciousness and of being woken by a Nepali athlete. Both can be true, differing only in degree. But degree is exactly what decides whether this is filed as a medical item or as a system warning.

The blind spot lies elsewhere, and it is structural. The current rulebook polices the endpoint — the number on the scale. It does not police the process that produces that number. Fighters are therefore incentivised to dehydrate as far as the body will tolerate, then rehydrate before competing. The scale is right; the person is wrong. No rule was broken in this story. That is the problem.

At a multi-sport Games, the cost of an incident is carried by the delegation and the organisers’ medical system; no commercial promoter stands behind it. Economically, the incentive to reform is weaker than in professional promotions where a withdrawn slot is lost money. Against that sits a counter-pressure: MMA is still proving its place at multi-sport Games, and a repeated medical incident invites questions about whether the sport belongs.

Fairness requires one more line. The withdrawal was the correct protective act. It kept an unfit fighter off the mat. This was the loss of a competitive opportunity, and it should not be read as a violation of the event’s integrity.

The signals to watch next

Three questions will decide whether this drifts into forgetfulness or opens a change. Does the MMA programme at these Games apply hydration testing, or only day-before weigh-ins? Will the federation and the Olympic committee file a formal incident report, because without a report there is no lesson? And will Sanyal receive repeat kidney-function and neurological follow-up over the coming weeks?

In 2026, in St. Petersburg, I mispronounced Eden Hazard’s name three times in one half. That night I sat through the tape until morning and promised myself to slow down. St. Petersburg taught me that a stumble is the fastest way to learn to walk. Combat sports is the same, except that here the stumble is not a mispronounced name; it is a man unconscious in the heat. Every season has its own pulse, if you are willing to listen for it. The pulse just now in Nagoya is beating faintly, exactly where few people bother to put a hand.