Fitter, stronger Ancy Sojan set for greater heights

Long jumper Ancy Sojan has finally started to realise her promise, and the stint in the Indian camp in Bengaluru has done wonders for her.

Ancy Sojan after registering a jump of 6.55m in the women's long jump at the Indian Grand Prix in Thiruvananthapuram, on March 13.

Ancy Sojan's dramatic improvement in long jump has been the talk of the town ever since the girl from Thrissur crossed 6.50m in two successive meets in Thiruvananthapuram recently.

Ancy surpassed her career-best performance of 6.36m, achieved at the Khelo India Games in 2020, when she leapt 6.51m in the Indian Open Jumps event in Thiruvananthapuram on March 1. However, the absence of a wind gauge instrument put a question mark on her sterling show. Twelve days later, Ancy proved her 6.51m jump was not a fluke as she posted an impressive 6.55m while winning the gold in the first Indian Grand Prix meet at the Chandrasekharan Nair stadium.

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Ancy has finally started to realise her promise, and the stint in the Indian camp in Bengaluru has done wonders for her.

For the past six months, Ancy has been training under Anoop Joseph in the Indian camp and has improved tremendously.

‘Weight training, new diet’

“She joined the camp in October and since then has been training under me. Her technique was pretty good but I found she lacked the strength. So she did a lot of weight training to improve her core strength and it was followed by a new diet. She is fitter and stronger now and it has made the difference. Ancy's biggest strength is her speed and she is a rhythm jumper. But she has to improve her run-up and we are working on it. Even in the last two meets Ancy was losing her rhythm and momentum midway through her run-up and it has resulted in fouls. We need to work on it,” said Anoop.

Ancy’s next stop will be the Federation Cup in Kozhikode which will be followed by the Inter-State meet.

“There will be a 45-day gap after the inter-State meet and before the next big meet so we will have enough time to work on her shortcomings. I had set her a target of 6.60m this season but considering the way she has improved in the past six months I think she can easily go beyond that distance. She is certainly a medal prospect for the Asian and Commonwealth Games,” said Anoop.