Before sunrise, the fishing village of Nattika in Thrissur is already awake. The air is thick with the briny smell of raw fish as wooden boats ride the glistening waves and fishermen bring the night’s catch ashore. This unassuming hamlet is the last place one would expect to find a world-class athlete.Yet from the loose, shifting sands of Nattika beach has emerged Ancy Sojan. Last month, the 25-year-old stood on the podium at the Asian Games inAichi-Nagoya, Japan, with her second Asian silver. In Aug, at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, she leapt 6.88m to wipe out Anju Bobby George’s 22-year-old national record in the women’s long jump.Earlier this week, as Durga Puja celebrations were in full swing, every road into Nattika was clogged. Children ran alongside the procession and old fishermen walked up from the shore as drumbeats mixed with the smell of the sea. Locals had organised her felicitation at the Triprayar Sports and Games Association stadium. This was the girl who once ran along Nattika’s coastline at dawn with her father, Sojan ET, an autorickshaw driver. Now the whole town had turned out to see its biggest star.Loud applause greeted Ancy as she walked to the podium. She spoke frankly about her hormonal issues and the sleepless nights spent fighting her weight.“The season began with a bronze at the Asian Indoor Championships in Tianjin, and ended with a silver at the Asian Games in Japan,” she said.Missing gold in Aichi-Nagoya by 2cm still hurts. “When I was younger, my dream was to fill my trophy cabinet with national medals. Now, I want to fill it with international medals, irrespective of the colour,” she said. Beyond that sits a bigger target. “I want to become the first Indian woman to jump 7m.”After breaking the national record, Ancy had told sports minister OJ Janeesh that the state’s athletes do not get the recognition they deserve. Janeesh, at Triprayar to felicitate her, backed her with figures.“Between 2018 and 2026, the previous govt has not disbursed funds worth Rs 13 crore to its athletes who participated at various national and international meets,” he said.The sports council, he said, had no details of the state’s athletes despite writing twice to associations.Payments to around 300 athletes, including Ancy, are pending. The govt owes her Rs 3 lakh, which he said would be paid in a couple of months. “I am Ancy’s debtor,” the minister said.Following criticism over disparities with other states, the cabinet recently doubled cash awards for Commonwealth Games medallists. Under the Pinarayi Vijayan govt, CWG medallists received Rs 5 lakh for gold, Rs 3 lakh for silver and Rs 2 lakh for bronze. The benefits now extend to coaches and athletes who narrowly missed medals, Janeesh added.Ancy’s story is also the story of Nattika. Nattika has produced several Olympians and international athletes. Besides P Ramachandran, who ran in the 4x400m relay at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Nattika has seen the rise of track athlete Anjali PD and discus thrower Athulya P. But none has burst into the national consciousness like Ancy.“I trained on a mud track when I started. Today, Nattika Fisheries School has a synthetic track, and Thrissur also has its own synthetic track for school events. I am happy that the coming generations will get the opportunities and infrastructure I never had,” she said.Ancy has put Nattika on India’s sporting map. India’s next Olympic winner may not come from big metros or posh academies, but from forgotten coastlines that carry the briny smell of raw fish.
Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own.