Bhubaneswar: Dutee Chand, the fastest female sprinter in India, was advised by a doctor that she had stage 1 cancer and would have to give up her athletic career in November 2021.
Her dismal performance in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter preliminary rounds at the Tokyo Olympics led to this diagnosis.
The early stages of cancer in Dutee’s body were discovered by Dr Sudeep Satpathy, a sports medicine specialist from the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) in Bhubaneswar.
After getting the MRI results, Dutee recalled her conversation with the doctor and described how she was scared and unsure about what this meant for her future.
Dutee cited a groin injury she sustained earlier in 2021 while competing in the National Inter-State Championships leading up to the Olympics as the origin of her health issues.
Dutee made the assumption that the cancer that was mostly impacting her groin area might have developed as a result of hormonal abnormalities associated to testosterone. Others initially discounted Dutee’s discomfort as being only groin pain, but Doctor Satpathy cautioned her against untreated complications.
At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Dutee, who has been suspended for four years due to doping, appeared subpar and did not even advance past the preliminary round in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter races.
