Someone by the name Santhi Soundarajan isn’t sure of her gender. Or she is deliberately forcing people to consider her a woman because competition is easier compared to men. Anyway she even won a medal at the Doha games and now officials are in awe over this. Someone who wasn’t even selected for the Southern Railway team because of her controversial gender was selected in the Indian contingent to represent India at an international meet!

THE Athletic Federation of India (AFI) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) will not confirm it. But sources in the IOA say Soundarajan Santhi, who won silver in the women’s 800 metres at the Asian Games, has failed a gender test at Doha. She is set to be stripped of her medal.

The AFI re mains in denial mode. “We have not received any official intimation from either the IOA or the Doha Asian Games Organising Committee, so we will not be able to say anything right now,� said AFI secretary Lalit Bhanot.

It is learnt Santhi could not make it to the Southern Railway team last year following doubts over her gender. Santhi trained under Dr Nikolai, the foreign coach for athletics, in Bangalore.

According to International Olympic Committee rules, an athlete undergoes a gender test only when doubts arise, or someone complains.

Someone in South Africa is having tough time coping up with the newly found stardom. People who are generally not used to it want to live life to fullest at slightest given opportunity.

India’s performance is no doubt mind blowing and it gives me immense pleasure to see my team winning after the thrashing. But can we become complaisant at this point of time? remember there are more tests to go and its India!

But still I am proud of this leftarmer from Kerala

S. Sreesanth, 23, an adolescent dancer who metamorphosed dramatically into a cricketer in adulthood, has taken South Africa by storm — with a combination of aggressive bowling and equally dramatic showmanship.

Through Saturday and Sunday, he has stared and glared, walked up to and muttered at the South Africans, doing to them what Andre Nel attempted to do to India, but with far more success. Watched by a spellbound crowd, he laughed mockingly when he dismissed Hashim Amla and floated like a butterfly when he got Graeme Smith.

But the piece de resistance had come earlier, when he batted.

He tried to back away and whack a Nel bouncer, and the bowler pointed at his chest and seemed to say that he lacked heart. The next ball went flying over Nel’s head and the ropes. And Sreesanth hopped wildly down the wicket, waving his bat around and making suggestive pelvic thrusts. Nel had lost the battle.

He has bowled with fire too — his eight wickets have brought India to the brink of victory. As India waits for a historic Monday, the overwhelming image is of a young man who has joyously led a feisty Indian fightback and captured imaginations and hearts.

Source: HT