Bhubaneswar: India’s fastest woman Dutee Chand bought shoes, handbags and clothes last month, but the shopping bags are lying unopened in the bedroom of her Bhubaneswar flat. She has switched from cars to scooters—“to save money”—but bought a BMW last week. Chand isn’t training either. Her only mission now is to clear her name from accusations of doping. She wants to erase this stigma and keep her legacy golden as she prepares for retirement after the Paris Olympics in 2024.
In August, the sprinter, who holds the national record in 100m and won silver in the 2018 Asian Games was banned for four years by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) after samples taken in December 2022 contained banned substances. She plans to challenge this ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland and win. Dutee does not back down from a fight, and she has the battle scars to prove it.
It is a cliche to talk about a sportsperson’s struggles, but Chand’s successful career in the national and international arena is pockmarked with battles both legal and personal. From fighting extreme poverty (as a child she went without food for days), to proving her gender (she failed a hyperandrogenism test and was accused of being a ‘man’), and clashing with her family over her sexuality and partner (she is India’s first openly gay athlete); every time she’s on top of the world, something pulls her down.
“My life has been like this, I brought medals to my country and worked hard, but there were always battles waiting for me,” said Chand. After 10 years as an athlete and 1,500 medals, Chand was ready to retire after the Paris Olympics next year. But the four-year ban is a bitter pill to swallow. Samples taken on 5 and 26 December contained other “anabolic agents/SARMS”. These are selective androgen receptor modulators, listed under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2023 prohibited list of non-specified substances. She will be out of action till 3 January 2027.
“I made my name with a lot of hard work and now this test ruined everything. From sponsorships to training grounds and camps, I have nothing,” said Chand.
She has been in near-constant pain ever since she was diagnosed with cancer in November 2021 and it has affected her performance. It’s another war she’s been waging against her cells that are threatening to break her muscle and spirit.
“Running is my life. I last ran in the 2022 National Games of India in Gujarat. I secured the 5th position. I couldn’t do better because of the pain,” she adds.
Chand recalls those terrifying days of unbearable pain in the groin area. She consulted a doctor, but nothing showed up in the X-rays. That’s when she went for an MRI and learned that she had Stage 1 cancer.
My life has been like this, I brought medals to my country and worked hard, but there were always battles waiting for me – Dutee Chand
Since the ban, she can no longer participate in national camps and meets. Her sponsors have dropped her. She worries about money. And above all, she misses her training sessions.
“I am about to begin my training for the Paris Olympics, I don’t know what I would be without running and my training,” said Chand, who hopes the ban will be lifted in time for her to compete.
And so she gets up at the crack of dawn, ready to train.
“I wake up at 4.30 every morning but I have nowhere to go. It’s a habit. My eyes still open in the morning.” So she goes to the gym in her neighbourhood to do basic exercises and keep fit.
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Instagram star
Chand still wears sports clothes to remind her of who she is. She opens the door of her two-room flat in Bhubaneswar in a pair of black Puma shorts with a bright pink t-shirt. It goes with the pink lipstick she has on. She’s cut her hair short, and she impatiently brushes the tendrils framing her face.
She’s been having trouble sleeping ever since she got the notice on the four-year ban. But her mother, father, two sisters and her brother who are back home in their village in Jajpur are a source of strength.
“I visited the village and went to the temple with them,” she said.
The unopened bags of clothes in the room all bear the Puma logo.
“Puma was sponsoring me but after this ban, the contract was not renewed. I had high hopes that the NADA’s decision would be in my favour and I brought all this for training,” said Chand while putting out a pair of brand-new, unused black and pink shoes from the box. The state and the central governments have supported her financially from time to time, but that too has stopped since the doping scandal.
I made my name with a lot of hard work and now this test ruined everything. From sponsorships to training grounds and camps, I have nothing – Dutee Chand.
Fighting the ban may well be one of the hardest battles she’s had to face, but Chand is ready. Her smile is bright and determined—and full of hope. She is knocking on every door for help, from senior officials to ministers like Kiren Rijiju and Anurag Thakur. But as of now, she’s only got vague assurances.
“As long as we win, everyone helps us, but when bad times come, we have to fight alone,” said Chand with a sad smile. But she’s quick to add, “But I have the full support of people with me, I have done nothing wrong and now I will get help.”
With this positive thought, she goes to the gym every day and trains from 5:30 to 9 am. And for the first time in years, she has time to indulge in reels and social media. Instagram is her platform of choice where she makes reels for her one million followers.
“Now I have time, so I spend it on social media, reply to fans’ messages, and sometimes making reels,” said Chand who recently posted a clip on Instagram about her workout. In another, she flaunts her new BMW. Her partner who lives with her makes things a little better. Whenever she posts photos of them on Instagram, her fans respond with encouragement and love. The comment section is full of hearts, and cheers like “nice couple”.
Her Instagram handle is an archive of her achievements. In 2021, at the Indian Grand Prix IV in Patiala, Chand ran the 100 metres in 11.17 seconds, setting a new national record.
She won two gold medals at the 2014 Asian Junior Athletics Championships and a bronze in the 60-metre dash at the Asian Indoor Championships in 2016, setting a national record time of 7.28 seconds.
She made the front pages of national dailies when she was the only athlete to bring home a gold in the 2019 Summer Universiade. The previous year, she won two silver medals in the Asian Games. In fact, her 200-metre dash at the 2018 Asian Games marked India’s first medal in the event since PT Usha’s gold in 1986.
But now, nearly everyone has forgotten or chosen to ignore her achievements — the ban is all that people are talking about.
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Never-ending fights
There are moments when Chand’s smiles give way to despair. The Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel of the NADA issued a lengthy order, citing multiple discrepancies between the athlete’s submission and the testimony presented in the case. The panel alleged that “The athlete didn’t cross-check the contents of the drugs with the latest published lists of prohibited substances by WADA”.
Chand was gunning for a spot in India’s Paris Olympics contingent when she was diagnosed with cancer. She was terrified that it would derail her last shot at the Olympics and only confided in her family, and immediate training circle.
“The doctor suggested some medicine and I took them after discussing it with my physiotherapist and coach,” she said.
She claims she took the dosage for ten days, after which the pain in her groin subsided. But then the NADA called her for a doping test. “It [the results] came out of nowhere. I have given thousands of dope tests in my life,” said Chand.
She reportedly tested positive for selective androgen receptor modulators, which are non-steroidal substances commonly used to treat osteoporosis, anaemia and wound healing in patients. All her competitive results will be scrapped from the date the first sample collection took place. 5 December 2022.
“A sports person’s job is to train better, perform better, and ask the coaches and physiotherapists about all this and I did that. What is my fault,” she asks.
Her peers and colleagues have been advising her to confess that she took the drug.
“No one came back from doping. I called many people who faced the ban, and they told me to accept that I took the drug and then they will cut out the ban duration,” said Chand. She claims that the NADA said it would shorten the duration of the ban to three years if she accepted that she took the drugs.
“But I will not accept something I didn’t do. I will fight it.”
She has fought—and won–other battles. In 2014, she was on top of the world after she won two gold medals in the 200-metre and 4-by-400-metre relays at the Asian Junior Athletics Championships. But a few months later, the Athletic Federation of India declared that her ‘hyperandrogenism’ or high natural levels of testosterone, did not allow her to compete as a female athlete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
She was subsequently pulled out from the team at the last minute, and also dropped from the 2014 Asian Games. At the time she was 18 years old.
“I was shattered, my whole life I fought as a girl against society, parents, and patriarchy. But when I was winning and bringing medals home, they were accusing me of something like this,” said Chand.
She turned to the highest court of appeal for global sports to fight the AFI and the International Association of Athletics Federations’ rules on ‘hyperandrogenism’—the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2015, the CAS ruled that the level of natural testosterone in an athlete’s body was insufficient to bar some women from competing against females. It suspended Hyperandrogenism Regulations for an interim period of two years. The decision was a game-changer that made headlines the world over.
With this hurdle cleared, she emerged as an unstoppable force among Indian athletes. She took home the gold at the 2016 Federation Cup National Athletics Championships. She did this while breaking the national record and clocking 11.33secs in the women’s 100m sprint.
I met almost every Bollywood star. Almost everyone told me that I am ‘the real hero of the country, who makes India proud on the international level’- Dutee Chand
Then in 2019, Dutee Chand told her parents that she was in love with a girl. “The Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalise gay sex in 2018 encouraged me to speak publicly about my relationship,” she said.
It took a while for her traditional family to accept her choices, but relations with her older sister Saraswati deteriorated and have not improved yet.
“I convinced everyone but she did not approve of my choice and we were not on good terms after that,” said Chand. “She was the one who leaked this news to the media and after this, I openly talked about my relationship.”
After she came out, Dutee took her partner Monalisa Das on vacations across India.
“We went to Mysore palace in Karnataka, the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. We went to Delhi and Mumbai,” said Chand with a huge grin on her face.
“I liked the Golden Temple the most,” Das chips in as she enters the room.
Chand recalls the time Das prepared lunch for her entire family. “We shared food from one thali and were giggling the whole time. She loves to watch reels and I was teasing her about the same,” said Chand.
Das has been her pillar of support, and their relationship has cemented her views on same-sex marriage.
“Earlier widows were not allowed to marry again and caste discrimination was legal. Change will come slowly. I have full faith that same-sex marriage will be legalised,” said Chand.
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Happy place
Whenever something troubles Chand she goes to Puri to visit the Shri Jagannath Temple and the Golden Beach. These days, she’s been spending time walking along the shores of the famous beach. She walks for ten minutes without saying a word, but she does not have the luxury of silent introspection.
A man buying bangles with his wife recognises her. “You are Dutee Chand right?” he asks excitedly. She nods in confirmation and he immediately whips out his phone for a selfie.
This happens regularly, but Chand never says no. She forces a smile and poses for the cameras. “Everyone knows her in Odisha,” said a vendor. But the moment her fans leave, she shrouds herself in her thoughts.
“In 2014 when my gender became an issue, I came here and asked God, ‘Why did you show me this path if things were supposed to end like this’,” said Chand softly.
A few days later, she received a call from a “scientist lady” from the United States of America, who offered to help her. “I did not believe this but she told me that we can challenge this in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.”
She had only Rs 20,000 in her bank account back then but she did not lose hope and approached political leaders. The Sports Authority of India announced that it would bear the legal cost.
“That time was really hard and I got help. I will surely get help this time,” said Chand.
When she’s not interacting with fans on social media or on the beach, Chand relives her achievements and honours she won over the years. Her phone is filled with videos and photos of interactions with Bollywood stars and political leaders. She swipes through the photos–there’s one with Amitabh Bachchan, and another of her posing with Ranveer Singh. She stops to look at her photo with Katrina Kaif.
“I met almost every Bollywood star. Almost everyone told me that I am ‘the real hero of the country, who makes India proud on the international level’,” said Chand while showing her pictures from the stage of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, Kaun Banega Karod Pati, and other shows where she [articpated as a wild card entrant.
But her favourite video is her interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Dutee, your name means shine and you are shining the light through your sport,” Modi said in 2021 when Chand qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
“He told me I am the light and this light will not fade easily.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)