CHENNAI, India, Sept 6 AFP - Indian 800m runner Santhi Soundarajan, who failed a gender test and was stripped of a silver medal won at the Doha Asian Games, has attempted to commit suicide, officials said today.
Twenty-six-year-old Santhi apparently took a veterinary drug and was brought to hospital on Wednesday.
Her condition is stable. Doctors have said she is out of danger but will remain there for some time for observation,'' Pudukottai district administrator S.J. Chiru said. He said he did not know exactly what had driven the athlete to try to take her life amid reports of a family dispute over the 1.5 million rupees she was awarded by the Tamil Nadu government. Santhi lived with her poor, brick kiln worker parents and four siblings in rural south India's Pudukottai district some 350 kilometres from the state capital Chennai. The state's sports secretary M. Raman said it seemed Santhi had attempted suicide due to personal and domestic reasons and it had nothing to do with sports or any government action’’.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced she failed a sex test and implied Santhi had deceived the sporting world by competing as a woman when she was a man, effectively ending her career.
But Santhi, who returned home to live in humiliation, insisted along with her parents and coaches she had done nothing wrong.
Lovely bunch- shit on her and then deny responsibility. I thought they abandoned the chromosome tests??