Ancy was just three years old when Anju set her mark at the Athens Olympics. Now, she has the best jump by an Indian woman which also places her seventh in the world’s top lists for this year. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT

As a little girl growing up in Nattika, a small fishing village on the coast of the Arabian Sea in Kerala’s Thrissur district, Ancy Sojan loved music and dance. It was her father, Sojan, an athletics nut, who insisted she take up sports. He’d been a promising athlete himself but eventually had giving up the sport and started plying an autorickshaw to earn a living.

Slowly, he passed on his passion for track and field to his daughter.

“I used to run the 100m, 400m and do the long jump but I didn’t have the right guidance and support when I was young. I had to stop and start driving an auto to provide for my family. But I always loved sport and I managed to convince Ancy to try something that I loved. Luckily, she also fell in love with it,” he tells Sportstar.

Sojan did more than just plant the seed of interest in sport in Ancy’s mind. After enrolling her in athletics coaching, he’d drive her too and from her practice sessions at the neighbourhood club in Nattika where she learned sprinting before focussing on the long jump.

“I always took her in the morning and evening for training. If she had some competition in the neighbouring towns, I would drive her to them and watch her compete. I enjoyed that. I’d often miss a lot of rides. Some of the other auto drivers would say ‘Sojan why are you doing all this? She’s an auto driver’s daughter. What do you think she will do? But I always knew that Ancy would do something special,” he remembers.

On Saturday evening, during the Inter-State Athletics Championships at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Ancy would do just that. The 25-year-old leaped an eye-popping 6.88m to smash the Indian national record in the women’s long jump, erasing Anju Bobby George’s mark of 6.83m that had stood for 22 years.

Ancy was just three years old when Anju set her mark at the Athens Olympics. It’s a mark that’s stood across several generations of athletes and was one of the longest-standing records in Indian track and field. Ancy is more than aware of just how significant the jump is.

“I know that 6.83m is a huge jump. I know Anju ma’am is a legend and I’m also aiming to be like her. I also want to be a world class jumper,” she says.

The jump might have come now but those who know her were long expecting something special from her.

“You know how you need a lot of funds to play sport. There’s not a lot of support. And my father was an auto driver but he never let me face any challenge when I was trying to be an athlete. If he didn’t have money for anything, he’d borrow it from his friends. He treated me like a princess. He had the spirit of a sportsperson and he would always tell me that he was fulfilling his dream through me,” Ancy tells Sportstar.

With her father firmly in her corner, she had progressed steadily through the junior ranks and had made it to the national camp in Bengaluru in 2021 where she began training under coach Anoop Kumar.

“Even then she stood out because she was this ball of energy. You knew she was waiting to explode. It was a matter of time,” says Anoop, who continues to coach her to this day.

More than a national record

Anoop recalls that what stood out about Ancy was not just her raw potential – he says she is perhaps the fastest Indian long jumper on the runway approach -- but her mentality.

“She wasn’t someone who was easily satisfied. Anju’s record hadn’t been touched for over twenty years but she was already looking beyond it. I remember one of the first conversations I had with her and she said she wanted to be a 7m jumper,” he says.

Ancy remembers this conversation as well.

“I knew what Anju ma’am’s record was but I was never chasing it. I only wanted to be a world class athlete. I remember when I went for the Commonwealth Games for the first time as a 21 year old. I saw how far some of the top athletes were jumping. I was so encouraged by their speed and ability. I too wanted to improve to be like them. It never crossed my mind that I have to cross this mark or any other. I just wanted to be a world class jumper,” she says.

Even when she first started enjoying international success-- beating out more fancied opponents to win silver at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023 – Ancy was always looking beyond.

“She had a few injuries towards the end of 2023 and the run up to the Paris Olympics. Despite that, she could have still found a way to qualify through rankings for the Olympics but she told me ‘Sir, I don’t want to go like this. I want to go because I really deserve it. I want to prove I belong at this level,” he recalls.

That ambition would get harder still to accomplish when, in 2025, Ancy suffered a hormonal issue that caused her to gain weight rapidly. The extra kilos weighed her down and her form dipped unexpectedly. After tests finally diagnosed the cause, Ancy underwent a intense training and diet regimen to get into the shape she wanted.

“I love rice and biryani but I completely cut everything like that out of my diet. I know that if I wanted to be a world-class jumper, you have to sacrifice for that,” she remembers.

At the start of the 2026 season, the change has been dramatic. Ancy lost eight kilos of mass (dropping from 63kg to 55kg) and 13 percent of body fat (going from 26 percent to 13 percent). As the weight dropped, she started to soar. At the Federation Cup in Ranchi last month, Ancy leaped a personal best 6.76m to win gold.

But while it took her to second in the Indian all time list behind only Anju, it wasn’t enough to meet the Athletic Federation of India’s qualification mark for the Commonwealth Games. Although it was a big enough mark for a case to be made for Ancy to be included in the Indian team for Glasgow, and while athletes across other sports have fought to be included in Indian teams with less in support of their claim, Ancy made it clear very early that she wasn’t going to fight to be included.

At the Inter State Championships – which was also serving as a qualification event for the Asian Games – there would be nothing left to chance.

Nervous before the start of the competition, Ancy calmed herself by jumping a massive 6.73m right away. That was the furthest she’s jumped in the first jump of a competition. After a foul in her second attempt, she made clearances of of 6.67m and then 6.72 m. Each one of these jumps was significant– any one of them would have won the competition – but Ancy wasn’t satisfied.

She had been psyching herself up, playing in her mind, a scene from one of her favourite movies – Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.

“There’s this scene where Milkha Singh was wearing someone else’s India jersey and was caught and got slapped by his coach. The coach tells him if you want to wear the Indian jersey you have to beat the man who wore it before you. That’s when I started getting goosebumps and I started tearing up. That really inspired me. I told myself the same thing. I had to jump really big,” she says.

That’s when that jump happened. After a rapid sprint down the track, Ancy found the board with her right cleat near perfectly. She flew over the sand pit and landed further than any Indian woman had before.

Looking beyond

At that moment, Ancy exulted. She pumped her chest in celebration and then fell on the track. But as the exhilaration of the moment subsided, she was already looking beyond that mark. Her mark places her seventh in the world’s top lists for this year and Ancy believes she doesn’t have to be satisfied with that statistic.

“This is a statement that India also has heavyweight jumpers. I wanted to prove that at the world level, India is also rising. I want to show and encourage the youngsters also to become good jumpers. But I’m not just satisfied with this. I’m going to the Asian Games and I want to do something special there also. I also want to cross 7m,” she says.

There’s some concern whether Ancy may have peaked too early in a domestic meet rather than at an international competition. But those who know Ancy say that’s unlikely to happen.

“I’ve seen Ancy for a long time. She’s someone who doesn’t have any change in intensity. She’s the same everywhere. She could have jumped a national record in a district meet or the World Championships. If she’s feeling good she is going to jump big,” says fellow statemate and one of India’s top men’s long jumper Murali Sreesankar

Back home in Nattika, Sojan has no doubts that will happen in Nagoya in a few months time. He had hoped to be in Bhubaneswar but had to be satisfied with watching Ancy jumping on a Youtube link after being confined to bed rest following a surgery. He’s happy with the record but knows Ancy can do more. He still drives his auto but the taunts he received are vanishing specks in the rear view mirror now.

“I always knew she would do something special. She’s done something very special today. But Ancy will do even more special things in the future,” he says.

Published on Jun 28, 2026