How Gopichand ensured India didn't lose Dutee

In 2015 Pullela Gopichand was contacted by his good friend and conditioning coach N Ramesh. It was about Dutee Chand. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had just cleared the Indian sprinter after she was suspended by the IAAF in 2014 for hyperandrogenism, a condition whereby an athlete has very high levels of testosterone in his/her body. At a time when she felt the end was near, things turned around dramatically for Dutee - so much so that today she is the second fastest woman in Asia, the 100m silver medallist of the 2018 Asian Games.

The Chaka Gopalpur girl's nightmare began in June 2014. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had summoned Dutee. It was for a gender test. Her gender was being questioned, on the basis of high male hormone levels in the body or in other words hyperandrogenism. Without any further tests or verification, she was suspended. She missed the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Help arrived from unexpected quarters. Beside coach Ramesh, there were others who played a very big role in salvaging Dutee's career.

These were: (1) Payoshni Mitra, doctorate in gender issues in sport; (2) Bruce Kidd, Principal, University of Toronto, Scarborough; and (3) James Bunting, a Canadian lawyer who specialises in sport cases. He reportedly didn't charge Dutee any fee to fight her case.

The combined and concentrated efforts to help Dutee 'run' again brought about the favourable CAS ruling in 2015 and then again in January 2018, when the IAAF's regulation of hyperandrogenism was suspended.

But Dutee had to begin all over again. That's when Ramesh called Gopichand, India's celebrated badminton guru and head national coach. And a special bond was formed.

Gopichand didn't think twice before offering full support to Dutee at a time when she was being heckled for no fault of her own.

Staying at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres had become a scary proposition for Dutee. That's when the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Foundation opened its gates for her.

Two years later, in February 2017, Gopichand's kind-hearted gesture as a fellow sportsperson gave birth to the Khel Udaan Project -- a brainchild of SAI, Pullela Gopichand Badminton Foundation, Mytrah Foundation and the Sports Authority of Telangana (SAT).

From high-performance coaching under Ramesh to top-notch support staff, every little detail of athletes' training was taken care of.

Gopichand's initiative, which began with helping Dutee found like-minded friends in SAT and the Mytrah Foundation - Apart from Dutee, there are 39 promising youngsters who are being nurtured as part of this programme.

Dutee alone stays at the academy. The rest stay at SAI and SAT quarters or as paying guests near the Gachibowli stadium. However, now, Gopichand wants to shift all of them to a hostel, where their health and diet can be better controlled.
Since February last year, these kids have won 30 National-level medals and a staggering 224 medals at state level.
Among them are teenagers Kavya, 800m silver medallist at the School National Games; Maheshwari, silver medallist from the National Cross-Country Championship); and Deepthi, a 100m gold medallist at the Junior National Athletics Championship, all of who are getting high-level training and nutrition under the Khel Udaan Project.
Maybe some day one of these kids might better Dutee's Asiad silver timing and return with a gold medal for India at the Asian Games.

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