Animesh Kujur, the new kid on the starting blocks, aiming to break records in sprints

Sprinter Animesh Kujur, on a lark, approached a foreign coach at last year’s Under-23 meet in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, and asked to be taken under his wings. As luck would have it, Englishman Martin Owens was open to the idea. Owens, the head coach of the Odisha Reliance Foundation Athletics HPC, asked Kujur to first appear for selection trials. “I asked him if he even knew who I was and he said ‘no’. Then introduced myself and told him that he would have to undergo trials at the high-performance centre (HPC) in Odisha,” Owens recalled. This was a turning point for Kujur.

Kujur, 20, has scorched the track by clocking an impressive 20.62 seconds to win the 200 metres gold at the Federation Cup in Bhubaneshwar, the second-best time ever by an Indian after Amalan Borgohain’s 20.52, the national record. He also qualified for the 100 metre final, making him the sprinter to watch out for.

The Kujur-Owens partnership has started showing results.

“I had no idea who he was. I just saw that a foreigner is in my state surrounded by other athletes, so I walked up to him and asked him if he could coach me. I had no other reason,” Animesh said.

Week later, Animesh packed his bags and headed to Odisha for assessment under Owens. Before leaving home he had to convince his mother who was worried about him ignoring his studies. That is when his father Amrit, a DSP in the Chhattisgarh state police, stepped in.

“I had to convince my wife. I saw that my son was fully invested in athletics and I wanted to back him as much as I could. Bache ka dil lag gaya tha (his heart was in it). Today everyone is happy that we didn’t stop our son from going to Odisha,” Amrit said.

Animesh spent most of his childhood in the police staff quarters in Maoist-affected Bastar region, where his father served for more than two decades. His initiation into sports happened early as his mother played hockey and father was an athlete who switched to football.

“I never had to push him to take up sports. He would wake up at five in the morning to accompany me to the ground at the staff quarters,” Amrit said. To help him take up a sport, the Kujurs enrolled Animesh in the Sainik School in Ambikapur, nearly 650 kilometres away.

“You know how strict they are in Sainik schools,” Animesh jokes. Like most kids in the region and inspired by his parents, Animesh joined the football team at the school. “I was a forward in the team but later took up athletics. At the school I also learnt the importance of discipline,” Animesh, who sports an army haircut, said.

Towering sprinter

At 6 2’ Animesh towers over most athletes. Owens was impressed with the height, but at age-group competitions, a towering Animesh was stopped from competing.

“He used to come back dejected from almost every junior meet because they didn’t allow him to participate, falsely accusing him of being overage. As a parent, I felt hurt but I would ask him to keep faith. I told him that God will help at the right time,” Amrit said.

It has been a little over a year since Animesh made his career-changing move to Odisha to train at Reliance’s HPC but he has impressed coach Owens.

“I have faith in him. He can go as far as he likes. He’s learned to train hard. He’s never late for training. We’ve worked on his strength, we’ve got him stronger. He’s worked incredibly well on his mobility and it shows,” Owens said.

The extra hours at the gym and eating well has also helped. His body fat percentage is just around 7 percent.

“When he arrived Animesh used to love his rotis. He could finish off 10-12 rotis in a meal and we gradually brought that down to two. We sat down with the coaches and planned out a diet chart for him. The plans are modified according to the training requirements,” nutritionist Isha Khedekar said.

Although Animesh has shown a lot of promise and is even confident of achieving the Paris Olympics qualifying standard of 20.16 seconds, coach Owens knows there is still a long way to go.

“He has to believe he can qualify for Paris. That’s a little arrogance that we need in sprinters. It’s a quality we look for but we need to be practical as well. This is a free year for him with no international meets. He can just go out there and express himself.”

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