Bengaluru: Dutee Chand maybe only twenty two years old, but she's seen both, the highs and the lows. She's the one athlete who has gone from having her career nearly screech to a full stop barely four years ago, to winning big at the Asian Games in Indonesia where she scripted a fairy-tale victory, winning two silver medals in the women's 100 and 200 metre category.
In Bengaluru, where she met briefly with the media on Wednesday, Dutee exuded a quiet confidence as she puts the past behind her and turns all her energies into going for gold at Olympics.
It could all have been so different. Only four years ago, in 2014, Dutee was denied permission to take part in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as her body was found to contain ‘hyperandrogenism’, a condition where the athlete has very high levels of testosterone. “I was devastated to know that I could not take part in athletics due to that condition and it was not my fault," she recollects.
It was then, that Pullela Gopichand, a friend of Dutee’s coach N Ramesh, offered Dutee his academy to train and stay in. “In 2014 when I was removed from the team, I had to leave the hostel and the camp and my coach had advised me to go to Hyderabad but I did not have any place to stay and that was when Gopi Sir offered me a place to train and stay at his academy”, she said.
As for Tokyo, she hopes to replicate her form and win that elusive medal in track and field. “I am planning to train from October onwards and might go abroad,” she said. If there is sufficient funding!
