Sprinter Annesha aims at getting a call at national camp to end her financial misery

Lucknow, June 16: After a long time a female sprinter from Bengal achieved gold in national level championship, in the recently held Federation Cup athletics in Lucknow.

She is Annesha Roy Pradhan from Jalpaiguri. But even after winning gold Annesha seemed anxious!

Speaking from Lucknow Annesha said, “I have been absent in my tea packet selling job for last five days. I will, at least, lose one thousand rupees!"

Annesha's father has a small grocery shop and Annesha has sisters and brothers also. So it becomes extremely difficult for her father to help Annesha financially and as its aftermath the sprinter, studying with arts at graduate level, started selling tea packets in her locality.

She said, “I run in the early morning. Then before going to college I distribute the tea packets among our clients and then after returning from college I again go to train. It helps me to spend my own expenses to continue my training and overhead expenses while participating in different championships."

This was first time Annesha earned gold from a national level championship. She already bronze medal in the Open National championship this year and interesting part of her achievement is that she has not even trained on the modern tartan synthetic athletics track.

Her coach, Rana Roy speaking from Jalpaiguri on Thursday (June 15) said, “We have ground here, but track is a grass track. What else to do? Nobody from the administration or from the State Athletics Association has come forward to reform the athletics track as well as the ground. So, Annesha also like her other friends trains on the grass track."

But the coach also had a lot of praise for her student as he said, “In spite of training deficiency and infrastructural difficulties Annesha has been showing great performance.

Now, my aim is to reduce her timing in the 200 meter to below 24 seconds. Once she can make it Annesha will be getting opportunity to join the national preparatory camp. There she will have all the modern facilities. She will not have to sell tea packets to run her own expenses. I am working on that only now."

OneIndia News