It's a race against time for Dutee Chand. With the Olympic qualification cut-off less than a month away, India's best bet in 100m sprint, Dutee, believes she's within touching distance of a Rio berth.
A timing of 11.47 at a Kyrgyzstan meet on Saturday may have fallen well short of the 11.32 Olympic norm, but Dutee still has a number of competitions beckoning her, the next one being an open meet in Kazakhstan later this week.
"I know I can qualify if there's a competitive field. You need the push to really give your best. Will look out competitions in Europe if I don't qualify this week," she says.
She came agonizingly close to making the Rio cut at the Federation Cup in April, clocking 11.33, breaking a 16 year-old record set by Rachita Mistry but missing out an Olympic spot by one-hundredth of a second.
"It was heartbreaking no doubt to miss it by such a tiny margin. But it also gave me the confidence to believe that it's within my reach."
Shifting base to Hyderabad from NIS Patiala to train at the Pullela Gopichand academy close to two years ago following the gender brouhaha that she was drawn into has proved to be winning. Away from the taunts, jibes and prying eyes, Dutee says the move has helped improve her timings significantly.
Training with male athletes, coach N Ramesh's idea, has boosted her performance by a large measure and the numbers are telling.
Breaching the meet mark, Dutee clinched gold with an effort of 11.76 at the National Games in Kerala last January. Her personal best now stands at 11.33. A giant leap.
"My timings have improved significantly since I moved to Hyderabad. Training with male athletes here has helped a lot since they are faster than me so I have the drive to clock a better timing. It was an idea my coach N Ramesh came up with and it has really worked wonders for me," 20 year-old Dutee adds.
Two years ago, the going was good. Dutee had just won two gold medals at the Asian junior athletics championship in Taiwan and was dreaming of her maiden Commonwealth Games appearance in Glasgow when the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) struck out her name from the team list after she was tested for hyperandrogenism and was subsequently slapped with an indefinite ban. She successfully knocked on the doors of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which in July last year declared void the international athletics body's rules which debar athletes with hyperandrogenism - deemed excessive but naturally occurring testosterone - from competing in the female category, awarding her the right to compete.
"No one pokes fun at me or bothers me here so I'm at peace and can focus solely on my performance," Dutee, who was granted permission by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) to train in Hyderabad, away from the other athletes in Patiala, says, "While the national camp will only run till the Olympics, Gopi (Pullela Gopichand) sir has promised me that the academy doors will always remain open for me and he will continue to support me. While most of the other players share rooms, I have been given a separate room with a TV and a giant bed with an attached bathroom. I'm taken care of very well here."
Coach Ramesh says that the focus in the weeks after the Federation Cup in April which involved lot of travel and competitions has been to touch upon her basic fitness, acceleration and endurance. "She's already there in terms of speed. It's just about that particular day and competition," he says, before adding that he's still awaiting his US visa so she can compete there if things don't work to plan in Kazakhstan.
Last month, Dutee was left to compete at the Taiwan Open athletics meet within an hour of flying in from a Beijing event. Defying fatigue, she clocked 11.50 to clinch gold.
"Her fellow athlete," Ramesh says, "requested to be dropped from the 100m event since she was tired, I asked Dutee if she was keen to do the same and her answer touched me, "Sir, Dutee desh ke liye kabhi bhi bhagegi"