No bicycles... no way forward for champions

KOZHIKODE: How can a cyclist win a medal without a cycle? T P Anjitha and V P  Sona Raj, two cyclists from here who have won gold medals in the National Track Cycling Championship held in Pattiala and the National Road Cycling Championship held in Patna recently, are busy finding an answer to this question. Now, they are almost certain that it is impossible to pedal to glory any more without getting cycles for proper training.“Getting cycles for training is hard for both of us. Most of the time we rent cycles from our seniors,” says Anjitha, whose father is a fisherman. “A track event cycle costs around Rs1.5 lakh and a road event cycle costs around Rs 85,000. With the rented bicycles from other students, we cannot train as we like. We get only a limited training time,” says Anjitha. Though Anjitha has a road cycle, Sona does not have one. Anjitha won a gold and silver in the National Track Cycling Championship and two gold medals and a silver medal in the National Road Cycling Championship in the under-17 category. Sona won a gold in the time trial 500-metre track event in the Under-13 category. Both the cyclists are students of Sports Council School in Thiruvananthapuram. Sona is from a financially backward family and is a native of Koyilandy here. “For training we depend on the cycles in the Sports Council school. But the cycles are not up to the mark. Besides, our own cycles will help us make it to the next level. We are confident that we could improve our results, if good cycles are provided,” she said. Anjitha thinks that Sona would have received more medals, if she had been given proper training. “The financial background of Sona is pathetic. It was because of her talent that she received the medal. We had competed with well-trained SAI students and won medals.”