India's ace athlete Dutee Chand forced to sell her car to meet training expenses for Olympics

India's ace sprinter Dutee Chand is currently experiencing a shortage of money after the Tokyo Olympics 2020 got postponed until next year amid the coronavirus outbreak across the globe.

In order to meet her shortage of funds, Chand is now looking to sell her car to raise the required funds for her training.

The 24-year-old has spent most of her allotted money provided by the state government and sponsors on training as the Olympics has been reschulded to a new date due to the COVID-19 crisis.

"Training is going quite good so far, I have been training here in Bhuvneshwar. Earlier, there was no problem related to funds for training as Tokyo Olympics were coming up and our state government conferred me, but because of coronavirus the Olympics were postponed and I had spent the money which was given to me by the sponsors."

"Now, I need money for training, I need new sponsors but because of coronavirus I am finding it difficult to find them. Now I have decided to sell my car to arrange funds," Chand told ANI.

The 2020 Arjuna Award nominee also further spoke on the topic of how COVID-19 has had a huge impact on sports and thus sponsors are not too keen to support her at this time.

"The government itself doesn't have money right now because or coronavirus so it doesn't look good if I ask money from them. Coronavirus has impacted all of us, when there is no competition, no one is willing to sponsor us, we are all at loss, these are troublesome times," said two-time Asian Games silver medalist.

The ace Indian athlete claimed that it will take her around seven months to regain the best fitness level.

"All those who were training at hostels have been hit the hardest. All athletes will be impacted because of coronavirus, Olympics have been postponed by one year, all athletes will be impacted, lockdown made all of us stay at home, it will take 6-7 months to reach my best fitness levels," she added.