Bhubaneswar: Leading sprinter Dutee Chand of Odisha kept her medal hope alive by qualifying for the women’s 100-metre final at the ongoing Asian Games in Jakarta on Sunday afternoon.
Dutee qualified for the final after finishing third with a timing of 11.43 seconds in the semi-final.
The 100-metre final event is scheduled at 7.40 pm.
The ace sprinter had qualified for the Asian Games after her sterling show in the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Guwahati on June 29 this year where she broke her own national record clocking 11.29 seconds in the semi-finals before winning the final in 11.32 seconds, way ahead of the Jakarta Asian Games qualifying mark of 11.67 seconds.
Dutee was involved in a battle with the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) after she was barred from the Commonwealth Games in 2014 as her testosterone level exceeded the guidelines laid down for female athletes.
However, she challenged IAAF’s hyperandrogenism clause in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which gave its ruling in her favour after declaring the IAAF rules void on July 27, 2015.
