Dutee Chand

Some Lesser Known Facts About Dutee Chand

• Dutee Chand is an Indian sprinter. She has represented India in the Olympics and the Asian Games and has won several medals for India.

• In 2006, Dutee and her elder sister Saraswati were enrolled in a Government Sports Hostel, Bhubaneshwar. Her father enrolled them as he had 7 children and there were more mouths to feed than there was money in the pocket.

  

• NALCO (National Aluminium Company) CMD Dr T. K Chand lauded Dutee for her silver double in the 100 and 200 metres that brought glory to the Country and State.

  

• Her family was so financially weak that they hadn’t enough meals to get proper nutrition and to meet her nutritional requirements, Dutee used to eat in her village functions like marriages and birthday parties.

• On the advice of her sister, Dutee used to sprint in bare feet along with the banks of his village river.

• At the professional level, the first shoe that Dutee wore was a pair of Goldstar shoes. According to Dutee, it took her 2 to 3 weeks to get habitual in shoes.

• In 2015, Chand became the first person to win a case against the International Association of Athletics Federation for its rule on hyperandrogenism, in the Court of Arbitration for Sports. The rule prohibited athletes with high testosterone levels to compete in track and field events.

• She won a Tata Nano car in the 2013 School Nationals.

  

• In June 2014, she won the 200m and the 4x100m relay events at the 16th Asian Junior Athletics Championship in Taipei, China.

  

• In 2014, she shifted to Hyderabad and got trained at Pullela Gopichand Academy. She got trained with boys under the guidance of Coach N Ramesh.

  

• Her elder sister, Saraswati, took up a job in the police to support Dutee get through the hardships and achieve her goals.

• In 2016, she became the first Indian women sprinter to participate in the Olympics 100 metre individual event. She clocked 11.30 seconds in the 100m relay, beating the Rio Olympics qualification mark of 11.32 seconds.

  

• In 2016, she missed the Olympic qualifier mark by one-hundredth of a second in the 4x100m women’s event.

• On 28 April 2016, she created a National Record in the 100m event by clocking 11.33 seconds and beating Richa Mistry’s 16-year old record of 11.38 seconds.

• On 23 May 2016, she was appointed as a Manager in the Odisha Mining Corporation by the Odisha Government.

• On 26 July 2016, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik directed the Odisha Mining Corporation to provide her with an incentive of 10 Lacs INR to prepare for the Rio Olympic Games.

• She received a Certificate of Recognition from the Olympians Association of India on 31 March 2019.

  

• In 2018, she won her first Asian Games sprint. She competed in the Women’s 100 metres finals and won the silver medal.

  

• The 23-year-old stated that after the Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalize Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, she got the confidence to reveal that she was in a relationship with a girl.

• She became India’s first openly gay athlete. She was lauded across the nation for revealing that she was in a relationship with a girl.

• On 10 July 2019, she became the first Indian to win a Gold medal in the 100m event at the 30th Summer University Games (World Universiade) in Naples, Italy. She completed the track in 11.32 seconds and was in the lead from start to finish.

  

• Dutee Chand is the first athlete in India who has broken her own records for seven times.

• According to Dutee, she doesn’t believe in orthodoxy.

• On 1 November 2019, she appeared on the special “Karamverr” show of KBC season 11 along with Hima Das. 

• In November 2019, Dutee Chand was featured in the prestigious Time Magazine’s 100 Next.

• Here’s an interesting video about Dutee Chand’s biography: