London, Sep 20 (ANI): Considering her bitter experience after she failed her gender test, Indian runner Santhi Soundarajan prays that South Africa’s champion runner Caster Semenya doesn’t considers suicide.
Soundarajan failed a gender test after finishing second in the women’s 800-meter race at the 2006 Asian Games and was forced to return her silver medal.
Semenya, the 800-metre world champion who is also going through the same type of test to prove that she is eligible to compete as a woman, is facing the same future.
“I pray that Semenya does not go through what I’ve been through, it almost drove me to committing suicide,” the Sunday Express quoted Soundarajan, as saying.
“I’ve suffered immensely due to the stigma of the failed gender test,” she added
Soundarajan, who came from a poor family, was forced to drop out of competitive athletics after she failed the gender test.
Finding a job and earning enough money to eat then became a daily struggle. Semenya also comes from a poor background, but she managed to win the world 800m in one minute 55.45 seconds.
“With so much of the workload athletes go through, there will be hormonal changes. It’s bound to happen. The authorities should bear this in mind. I cannot forget what I had to go through after my medal was taken back. I hail from a poor family and no one would give me a job,” Soundarajan said.
“My entire family suffered as people began looking at me with a jaundiced eye,” she added. (ANI)
