Running... till the cows come home

The newly-laid synthetic track at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi is a long way, geographically and metaphorically, from the grazing fields of Jansale in Kundapura.

But the early inspiration for Ashwini Chidananda Akkunji, who blitzed an astonishing third leg of the gold medal-winning 4x400 on Tuesday, was her father’s cattle. It was those thought-free sprints, catching up with the frisky cows, that built in her the love of running, which somehow stayed with her despite all the hard times that visit most Indian athletes.

“I come from an agricultural family, my father’s a farmer,” said the 23-year-old Ashwini, after the quartet’s memorable victory in front of 60,000 adoring fans. “I used to run with the cows. The place I come from is a village, and there are forests around. I used to chase the cows and run a lot at school. I was quite good, but I didn’t think about it seriously.”

It was on the suggestion of her father’s friend that she trialled for the state-run programme at DYSS (Dept of Youth Services and Sports) in Vidyanagar near Bangalore. A coach named Manjunath BG spotted her and enrolled her in the sports school, which provides free boarding, lodging and education.

The three years there built the foundation of her athletics career. A brief stint at Tata Academy followed, but she returned to Bangalore and spent a year in the wilderness. “I had a lot of doubts, my performance was going down,” she said. “Then at a national meet, coach RS Sidhu saw me and picked me for the national camp. He knew my talent. I was down at the time, I thought my career was over. But he worked hard on me.”

It was a troubled period at home too. The family owned an areca nut farm, and crises were frequent. It was after she got a job as ticket examiner with Indian Railways a year and a half ago that the situation eased a bit on her monthly salary of Rs10,000.

Her athletics career might have passed by in obscurity if it wasn’t for the attention on Indian athletes at the Commonwealth Games. Having watched the event on TV, everybody in her village knows of her. “Nobody knew me earlier,” she says. “I have won other medals, but there was no recognition. I hope things will change after this.”