Updated on Friday, January 02, 2009, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, Jan 02: Santhi Soundarajan, who was stripped of her Asian Games medal after failing a gender test, has swapped competition for coaching to keep her athletic aspirations alive.

Soundarajan lost the women's 800 metres silver medal she captured in Doha in 2006 and was hospitalised last September following an apparent suicide bid because of the media intrusion following the incident.

However, she recently started her Olympian Sports Academy after joining the regional government as an athletics coach on a two-year contract, a newspaper reported on Friday.

"I've stopped training. I'm not returning to the track. I'm happy coaching," she told the newspaper.

Bureau Report