Athlete Shanthi Soundarajan, who failed a gender test after winning a silver medal in the Doha Asian Games last year, Wednesday allegedly attempted suicide by consuming “some veterinary medicines”.

Shanthi was admitted to a hospital in Pudukottai and was now out of danger, police said. “Shanthi is able to speak and she has denied that she attempted suicide. She maintains that she took some medicines for stomach pain,” Pudukkotai District Superintendent of Police Kapil Kumar C Saratkar told PTI.

Saratkar said the doctors had declared her condition to be stable.

“However, we do not want to take any risk and we are referring her to Thanjavur Government Medical College Hospital for further examination,” he added.

The doctors, who attended on her, said she had consumed some “veterinary medicines,” he said.

Shanthi, who hails from Kathakurichi village in Pudukottai district in Tamil Nadu, failed a gender test after wining the silver medal in the women’s 800 meters event in the Doha Asian Games.


In August last year, she had also won the 1500M gold and the 800M silver in the South Asian Games in Colombo. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister had awarded Shanthi a cash prize for her Doha Games effort in January this year. 

Family sources told PTI that Shanthi had consumed pesticide on Wednesday morning when she was undergoing physical training at Pudukottai.

She developed giddiness and vomitted, after which her friends took her to hospital, the sources said. Recently, she had her head tonsured to fulfil a vow in a temple.

She was in a state of frustration over the last few days, her friends and relatives said, adding that she was not attending training sessions regularly.

She had returned to Kathakurichi only on Tuesday from Chennai where she is studying, they said.

Shanthi has been shifted to the Thanjavur Government Medical College hospital. She is out of danger and no police case has been registered, hospital sources said.