Prajwal Hegde,TNN
BANGALORE: A failed gender test cost Shanthi Soundarajan more than the 800m silver medal at the Doha Asian Games.
Publicly humiliated and socially scorned, suicide seemed like a good option for the elder daughter of brick kiln labourers – Soundarajan and Manimekalai. Some nine months after one of the saddest stories in Indian sport unraveled itself on an international stage, the village belle from Kathakurichi consumed veterinary medicines in a bid to end her life.
It’s a story best forgotten, given that there are greater areas of darkness than light, except that Shanthi wasn’t born to fade into the night. When she got off her hospital bed in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukottai last September, head tonsured and heart filled with dread, she returned to the very track she dominated as a child, searching for the shards of her shattered dreams. In her new avatar as Tamil Nadu state-appointed athletics coach, she’ll be looking to conquer the same frontiers albeit with a different approach.
Published – January 2009
The Times of India – Full Article
Reuters (Tabloid) version of same article – January 2, 2009
Briefs-Indian athlete takes up coaching after sex test failure
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