![\"Ancy](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/msid-132062154\/ancy-sojan.jpg\" "\\"Ancy")
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Ancy Sojan (TOI Photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ancy hails from Nattika\u2019s lower-income Syrian Christian community. Money was scarce, leading Sanoj to ferry passengers in his auto-rickshaw. \u201cWe are not financially well off,\u201d remembered Sanoj, \u201cOur income depends on how much I earn from driving my auto-rickshaw, and it varies from day to day. Right now, I am recovering from an injury, so it has affected our earnings.\u201d\u201cThis record is dedicated to my father,\u201d Ancy said in Bhubaneswar, \u201cHe would often say that we didn\u2019t have any record at the national level in the family. For him, this is a reward for all the trust he placed in me and all the sacrifices he made over the years. This is my way of giving something back to him and making him proud.\u201dThe Sojans comprise Jansy, 47, Ancy\u2019s homemaker-mother. Younger son Dominic, 24, is studying business administration while the youngest, Anjali, 20, aims to follow in her sister\u2019s footsteps as a long jumper.Not far, Sanoj, like Sojan, was a district-level gold medallist in high jump, sporting ambitions ended before they began. \u201cI am not a trained coach myself. I began my academy for budding athletes like Ancy, so I could pass on my experience to them,\u201d Sanoj revealed.Sanoj first realised Andy\u2019s potential when she was just a teen. \u201cAt the U-14 State School Games in 2015, Ancy jumped to 4.93-m to win bronze. It was remarkable considering she was so tiny back then, just 13 years,\u201d he recalled.In 2019, Ancy burst onto the national athletics consciousness, registering a 6.26-m jump at the National School Athletics Meet in Punjab\u2019s Sangrur.Following Ancy\u2019s record-breaking leap in Bhubaneswar on Saturday, Sanoj noticed what some experts in long jump may have missed. \u201cTill a year back, Ancy\u2019s take-off extension had an issue. Not on Saturday. It was flawless,\u201d he elaborated.Sojan reckoned that his daughter is yet to reach her full potential. \u201cShe is not 100% there yet,\u201d he said, \u201cShe needs to improve her jump and holding time. But I\u2019m proud of her for erasing a 22-year-old national record set by Anju. She can now breach the 7-m mark,\u201d he added.Sanoj agreed. \u201cI believe she can cross the 7-m barrier,\u201d he said.Anju, the OG, knows it will happen. \u201cI am proud of her\u2026watched her jump with a smile on my face. Long jump has always been a Malayalee speciality. Proud that a Keralite broke my record,\u201d Anju said before leaving Bengaluru to meet the new star.Young Ancy too believes that the 7-m is within reach.\u201cAnju ma\u2019am told me, \u2018This is nothing. You\u2019ve broken the record, but now you have to keep doing it consistently and win medals at the World Championships and Olympics. This is a world-class jump, and soon we are moving towards 7-m,\u2019\u201d a breathless Ancy said.The 25-year-old, for long the country\u2019s third-best long jumper behind Anju proteges Shaili Singh and Lakshadweep\u2019s Mubassina Mohammed, will be chasing the 7-m. It has been on her mind for some time, but that demands a few technical adjustments.\u201cI had some issues with my landing. My legs were reaching the right position, but my body wasn\u2019t following properly. After that, I worked on my landing technique using the hanging bar and other drills, and that helped me reach 6.75m,\u201d she said.Progression has to be gradual. And smart.\u201cIf I suddenly try too much for 7m, it could affect my jump. Right now, we are focusing on raising my consistency,\u201d said the Asian Games silver medallist, \u201cThe 6.70m range should become my minimum level. It will happen. I\u2019m much more confident about that now.\u201dAncy\u2019s record jump is testament to the fact that while sporting talent can emerge from anywhere, it is usually from the modest backgrounds of India. And as in Ancy\u2019s case, it can even be nurtured by two autorickshaw-plying men who once harboured similar dreams.<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KOCHI\/BHUBANESWAR: When Ancy Sojan overhauled a 22-year-old national record in the women\u2019s long jump on Saturday, it shook awake Nattika, a tiny fishing hamlet in Kerala\u2019s Thrissur district.Some 2,000 km away from the sand pit in Bhubaneswar where she had landed with 6.88m, two local auto-rickshaw drivers vicariously fulfilling their own sporting dreams as Kerala […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-132062145,imgsize-65612,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/ancy-sojan.jpg\" "\\"Ancy")
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