The Greatest Injustice In Sport?

Dutee Chand has been suspended for having ‘too much’ testosterone THE story of Indian track star Dutee Chand is just another instalment in sports’ unfortunate and latest trend: women and acts of injustice coming together. A gold medallist at this year’s Asian Junior Championship, the 18-year-old runner came under the scrutiny by the Sports Authority of India for questions over her gender. According to the standards of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the amount of testosterone in her body was “too high”. The authority ruled she could no longer compete, due to such an “unfair” advantage. Dutee Chand, 200m final As if preventing someone from competing for something out of their control isn’t questionable enough, there have been no studies proving the IOC is correct in setting standards of “fair” levels of testosterone. Kate Fagan of ESPNw wrote: “And Chand could be just another in a string of female athletes waylaid by a policy that has nothing to do with levelling the playing field and everything to do with policing what a woman should look like. “Because here’s the thing: Research shows that ‘there is no clear scientific evidence proving that a high level of testosterone is a significant determinant in female sports’.” Still, Chand was pulled from India’s squad for the recently held 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. She now faces the daunting possibly of not being eligible to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, unless she chooses one of the two options the IOC’s rules allow: getting surgery to fix the “problem” or undergoing “drug therapy”. Or, Chand might just want to challenge the IOC and the rules measuring how “woman” a female athlete is — an option that seems better than the former two. The case has drawn comparisons with that of South African Caster Semenya, the London Olympics silver medallist who was subjected to gender testing. Santhi Soundarajan, who in 2006 was stripped of her silver medal from the Doha Asian Games for failing a gender test, said she was shocked by the lack of sensitivity in handling the Chand issue. “They have tested her at the last minute, humiliated her and broken her heart,” Soundarajan said of Chand’s Commonwealth Games dumping. “All sorts of things have been written about her. Now, if she re-enters the sports field, things will not be normal. Even if she takes treatment, people will kill her with their suspicious gaze.” Soundarajan said the matter should have been dealt with discreetly. “That things became public, is wrong. Would they have done it if it was their daughter?” she said. “Who is responsible for her future now? The job and the money are secondary problems. Think about how much she would have suffered. She is not from a wealthy or powerful family; just another ordinary family. “Even if she gets help from the State association, can she stay in peace in her village? She will find it tough to get married.”