16-year-old rising swim talent Saira Sirohi was found dead in her home in India early Monday morning in what multiple news outlets are reporting was a suicide.
The Hindustan Times reports that Sirohi’s body was found by her younger sister around 1:30 AM on Monday morning.
Sirohi was an Olympic hopeful for India, and had already won over 100 medals in various age group competitions, The Indian Express reports. She had garnered headlines as early as 2008, when she swam 38 km over 15 hours of straight swimming at her school’s pool. Sirohi was just 8 at the time.
No suicide note was found in her Ghaziabad home.
The Hindustan Times quotes her coach Raju Chaudhary expressing his shock at the news:
“All of us are shocked because she (Sirohi) had very strong willpower. She never got bogged down. She has won nearly 200 medals at various events since childhood. When she spoke to me on Sunday evening, she sounded normal enough. She said she will be concentrating on her studies for her upcoming examinations,” said her coach Raju Chaudhary.
Sportskeeda.com quotes a source close to the Indian swimming federation, who called Sirohi “one of the most hard-working young swimmers in the country,” and said her goal was to compete at the Olympics for India.
