THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There was little doubt on who was winning the race within a second of it began. Dutee Chand, in white, had blasted out of the starting blocks faster than any of her competitors at the women’s 100m final of the World University Games in Naples. Usually when she does that, catching up is not that easy. And so it proved once again, on Wednesday, as the woman in lane no 4 made it to the finish line before everyone else.
That well-run race, dominated from start to finish, made Dutee the first Indian sprinter to win a medal at this event. It is a remarkable achievement for someone who’s had to spend more time speaking to reporters than listening to her coaches over the last couple of months. After revealing that she is in a same-sex relationship, there was always the danger of that story dominating the narrative. But with this victory, Dutee has firmly shifted the focus back on her performances.
She compressed all her emotions into a short tweet, soon after winning. “Pull me down, I’ll come back stronger”. A message to all her naysayers! “I never expected to win before running,” she told this newspaper after the race. “This was really challenging for me. People started questioning my ability and even started saying ‘instead of sports, she is focusing more on her relationship’. So it was important for me to win here. I was determined to do well here because of that.”
She may have made it look easy but Dutee revealed that she did not feel at her best the morning of the race. After qualifying for the final with a time of 11.41s (an improvement from 11.58s which she had recorded in the heats), Dutee said that she had to stick around for a bit at the venue. “I had to remain there (at the stadium) till late for the dope test the night before. My body became tight because of that and I did not recover sufficiently on Wednesday. Otherwise, it would have been an even better time.”
Dutee clocked 11.32s, which was some way off her personal best of 11.24s. Coincidentally, that is the mark she will have to equal to qualify for the Doha World Championships, which will be held from September 28 to October 6. If she manages that, she will better her season’s best of 11.26s that she recorded at the Asian Championships in Doha in April.
“The time to qualify for the Doha championships is 11.24s and I am doing 11.31s now. So I am around that mark. From now on, I will concentrate on my timing. Here, the medal was the priority so I was focussing more on that. ”She will next be seen in action at the inter-state meet in Lucknow in August.