Dutee Chand

In 2012, Dutee Chand became a national champion in the under-18 category, when she clocked 11.2 seconds in the 100 metres event.[12]

Clocking 23.811 seconds, Chand won the bronze in the Women's 200 metres event at the 2013 Asian Athletics Championships at Pune. The year also saw her become the first Indian to reach the final of a global athletics 100 metres final, when she reached the final in the 2013 World Youth Championships.[13] In the same year, she became the national champion in 100 metres and 200 metres when she won the events clocking 11.73 s in the final in 100 metres and a career-best 23.73 s in 200 metres at the National Senior Athletics Championships at Ranchi.

In June 2014, she won two gold medals at Asian Junior Athletics Championships in 200 metres and 4 × 400 m relays. In the 200 m event she bettered her previous timing to 23.74 secs and hoping to get qualified for the Commonwealth Games but Chand was dropped from the 2014 Commonwealth Games contingent at the last minute after the Athletic Federation of India stated that hyperandrogenism made her ineligible to compete as a female athlete.[14][15] Following Commonwealth Games she was also dropped from the Indian contingent for the 2014 Asian Games. There has been no suggestion that Chand has been involved in cheating or doping—the decision was made in compliance with International Olympic Committee (IOC) regulations on “female hyperandrogenism” designed to address a perceived advantage for female athletes with high androgen levels. The decision has been condemned by Australian intersex advocates.[16] The Athletic Federation of India and IAAF's actions were widely criticised as an affront to Chand's privacy and human rights.[17]

Chand appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The Canadian law firm Davies, Ward, Philips & Vineberg, LLP represented her on a pro bono basis. The IAAF policy on hyperandrogenism, or high natural levels of testosterone in women, was suspended following the case of Dutee Chand v. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) & The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, decided in July 2015.[19] The ruling found that there was a lack of evidence provided that testosterone increased female athletic performance and notified the IAAF that it had two years to provide the evidence.[20][21][22] This effectively removed the suspension of Chand from competition, clearing her to race again.[23]

Santhi Soundarajan, an Indian middle-distance runner, extended her support to Chand, saying that Chand should not be victimized. She expressed her dismay at the lack of sensitivity in the handling of the issue, fearing that Chand's future may have been jeopardized, and demanded that all steps be taken to ensure Chand's return to the track.[24]

As soon as the hyperandrogenism rule changed, she started taking part in track competitions and participated at the 2016 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in 60 metres where in the qualification round she set the Indian national record clocking in at 7.28 secs and went on to win the bronze medal in the final, clocking a time of 7.37 secs.

Dutee clocked 11.33 secs in women's 100m dash to win the gold and erase Rachita Mistry’s 16-year-old earlier national record of 11.38 secs in the 2016 Federation Cup National Athletics Championships in New Delhi, however she missed the Rio Olympics qualification norm of 11.32 secs by one-hundredth of a second.[3][25] But finally on 25 June 2016, Dutee broke the very same National record twice in one day after clocking 11.24 at the XXVI International Meeting G Kosanov Memorial at Almaty, Kazakhstan, thereby qualifying for the Olympic Games. “I am really happy at the moment, it has been a tough year for me and I am so happy that my coach ... and my hard work has paid off. I would like to thank all the people in India who were praying for me to qualify. Your wishes have paid off.”, she exclaimed.[26]

Chand in action at relay event on track in 2017.

At Rio 2016 Olympics, she became the third Indian woman to participate for the Women's 100 metres, though she did not move beyond the heats, where she clocked 11.69 seconds.

Since Rio, Chand has been training at Hyderabad with young athletes, most notable among them Indian Badminton Star P. V. Sindhu. The sprinter is glad to have the new training base and P. V. Sindhu as a companion. Despite being the first woman to represent India in the Olympics sprint event in 36 years, Dutee was made to feel isolated due to her condition of hyperandrogenism. After shifting her base she said, “It’s like a home away from home. There are lots of friends to gossip with”.

Chand (left) with the Indian 4 × 100 m team at the 2017 Asian Championships

In 2017, at the Asian Athletics Championships she clinched two bronze medals, one in the Women's 100 metres, another in the Women's 4 × 100 m relay with Srabani Nanda, Merlin K Joseph, and Himashree Roy at Bhubaneswar.[27]

At the 2018 Asian Games, in the Women's 100 metres finals, Chand won the silver medal, her first Asian games medal, clocking 11.32 sec on 26 August.[28] Again on 29 August, she bagged her second silver at the Asian games in the Women's 200 metres final.[29] Her silver in 100 m, was India's silver medal in this category after 32 years since P.T.Usha won in 1986 and Chand's first medal in the Asian games as she was banned in 2014 and her 200 m silver is after 16 years for India since Saraswati Saha's gold in 2002 at Busan.[30]

As she won these two medals after a long court battle, she expressed her concern about her future saying, "My legal team helped me to come back. But nobody could guarantee what will happen in the future." Citing Caster Semenya's ongoing fight, she said, "Caster Semenya is still fighting. There is always fear but you need to overcome it."[31]

At the 2019 Summer Universiade in Napoli, Chand won gold in the 100m race, becoming the first Indian woman sprinter to win gold at the Universiade. She finished the sprint in 11.32 seconds.[5][6][32] She was also the flag-bearer during the opening ceremony of the event.[33]