Downpour fails to dampen enthusiasm in Ashwini Akkunji's hometown, celebrating her selection for team India.
It is a wet Sunday with incessant rain pounding, but this small town isn’t huddling to beat the cold, but is celebrating. Its best, Ashwini Shetty Akkunji, has risen like the phoenix from the ashes, to reclaim her place in India’s 4x400 relay squad for the Moscow world athletics meet.
The news of Ashwini’s reinduction into the Indian athletics team is doubly sweet for Jansale, particularly after Ashwini’s banishment from sports after she tested positive for performance enhancement drugs soon after her 4x400 gold in the Commonwealth games in New Delhi and double gold (4x400 and 400 metres hurdles) at Guangzhou in China. The B-sample confirmed strains of anabolic steroids in her blood sample.
Her father Chidananda Shetty Akkunji had then told dna: “My child might have failed the dope test in the B report but I do not think she had taken drugs...”
Ashwini was banished from athletics for two years and her name was struck off from the list of nominees for that year’s Arjuna Awards.
Jansale, immensely proud of Ashwini’s achievements, had gone into a shock after those events. Ashwini virtually went into hiding, not able to face the public for an error not of her making. But on Sunday, buzz in the little town was louder than the drip-drop of unrelenting rain.
Unmindful of the steady stream of her relatives and friends coming in, Ashwini visited the Durgaparameshwari temple in Kamalashilay about 12 kilometres from Jansale and offered special poojas.
“I and my wife Yashoda prayed for giving strength to Ashwini and also give her a good guru [coach] to train her adequately for the tournament in Moscow,” Ashwini’s father Chidananda told dna. Her relatives from Kundapur, Udupi and Mangalore have also prayed for her success in their respective places, said Yashoda her mother.
“Last two years were very traumatic for the entire family. She was alone in Patiala training all by herself; but with help of friends and peers, not even one day did she cry or lament about her bad days,” Yashoda said.
Ashwini’s brother Amit Shetty, a businessman in Bangalore, returned home to be with the family and participate in the celebrations on Sunday over her re-induction into the Indian athletics team. Amit could not hold back his tears of joy as he said: “I remember in our childhood, she would run bare foot and yet beat me in all races.”
Ashwini’s sister Deepti, a college lecturer in Bellare in Sullia taluk, was the first to call home to inform the family about Ashwini’s selection for Moscow. Since then, the flood of calls has never stopped.
“I knew she would bounce back. She is the only one of the five athletes to return to international athletics after a hiatus of two years and the undue humiliation she had suffered,” said Deepti.
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