Huge success story of a little village girl

Perhaps no one had heard the name of this lass Ashwini Akkunje till the day she received

Gold in 4x400 relay at the Common Wealth Games held at New Delhi recently. 

It was just a beginning for Ashwini to prove her capacity. Within a very short span of time, she has once again made the nation proud by winning yet another gold medal in 400- metres hurdle at the Asian Games held in China.

Ashwini Shetty who is currently working for Indian Railways at Bangalore, hails from a little village called Akkunje in Kundapur taluk. No one ever imagined, including her parents, that little girl Ashwini who was keen in sports during her primary school days would make it big in the international sports in future.

Speaking to City Herald, Ashwini’s father Chidananda Shetty said that though Ashwini was a born talent, she was able to reach to this greater height by having access to good coaching.

“She is a petite village girl and like many village children even her dreams would have been shattered if she was not exposed to the outside world from where she was able to get hold of excellent coaches. Ashwini’s mother was a good athlete during her school days and probably Ashwini too became an athlete as it was inheritance,” says Chidananda Shetty.

Education

Ashwini did her primary schooling at KPC English Medium School, Hosangadi and completed her High School Education at Vidyanagar Sports School at Bangalore. According to her father, it was her entry to the sports and residential school of Vidyanagar that brought a U-turn in her life.

“Though she was a good athlete during her primary school she was not well trained. The training she was given by her coach B Manjunath at sports school moulded her into a fine athlete,” says Chidananda. 

After winning several medals at state level athletics Ashwini was allotted admission at Tata Athletic Academy of Jamshedpur as the first batch student, where she pursued her pre-university education and under graduate studies.

With the rigorous training extended by her coach Sathman Singh at Tata Athletic Academy, Ashwini was able to take part in International level sport tournaments, informed Chidananda Shetty.

A farmer by profession, Chidananda Shetty is overwhelmed with joy as his loving daughter has won two international gold medals making her family, school and village proud.

 “Ashwini is a dedicated athlete and so I and her mother were sure that she would win gold at Asian Games. We owe a lot to her Ukrainian coach Yuri Ogorobnik who has trained her incessantly for the last two months. From last 2 years Ashwini has been trained at Sports Authority of India,” he informed.

When asked about her future plans, he said that right now she has the aim of winning 400 mts hurdles gold medal in the next Olympic Games with a timing of 53 sec, three seconds lesser than her Asian Games victory timing.