Ancy Sojan Edappilly: Kerala’s Long Jump Star and India’s Next Great Horizontal Jumper

There is a curtain in a modest home in Thrissur, Kerala, that tells an entire story without a single word. For years, a young girl hung her medals on it — district championships, state meets, national youth competitions — one by one, until the curtain could barely hold any more. “I love that sound of medals clinking,” Ancy Sojan once said in an interview. “That’s my music.”

Today, that music carries well beyond the family’s small coastal village. Ancy Sojan Edappilly, born on March 1, 2001, has become one of India’s most compelling track and field athletes, a two-time Asian-level medalist who has staked her claim as the finest female long jumper her country has produced in years. From a beachside neighborhood where her father drove an auto-rickshaw and her mother stocked shelves at a supermarket, she has jumped her way onto the continental stage — and she is only getting started.

Roots: A Sporting Family in a Fishing Village

Ancy Sojan grew up in a small village near the coast of Thrissur district in Kerala, a state that has long punched above its weight in Indian athletics. The family did not have much by way of material comfort, but athletics ran deep in their blood. Her father, Sojan E.T., had been a serious young athlete — a classmate, in fact, of Indian Olympian P. Ramachandran at Central UP School in Thrissur — before economic necessity redirected his life toward the wheel of an auto-rickshaw. Her mother competed at the village level in her younger years. Even Ancy’s grandfather had been a basketball player. It was a household where sport was understood and respected, even if it could not always be financed.

“My parents have kept the same mantra all along,” Ancy has said: “Do whatever you want to do. We will support you 100%.” That confidence, she says, motivated her and her siblings — a younger brother who also tried athletics before being sidelined by back problems, and a younger sister, Anjali, now following in her footsteps and training in long jump at the same academy where Ancy got her start.

Growing up, Ancy was drawn naturally to running and jumping, partly because of her family’s example and partly because the physical gifts were already evident. She was fast — noticeably fast — and her early physical education teachers and coaches at Central UP School took notice.

Early Development: Finding the Runway

Ancy’s formal athletic journey began around 2014, when she competed in sub-junior state meets in both sprints and the long jump. Those early results were modest — a fourth-place finish in sprints and a bronze in the long jump — but they established a trajectory. Her long jump marks at that stage were under 5.5 meters, the typical output of a talented but unrefined young athlete still learning the mechanics of flight.

The pivotal figure in her formative years was a man named Sanoj — known to his athletes as “Kannan sir” — a former athlete himself who happened to also drive an auto-rickshaw for a living. When Ancy was in seventh grade, her school headmistress recommended her to Kannan, and a coaching relationship began that would last seven years and lay the technical foundation for everything that followed. Kannan worked with Ancy at the Nattika Sports Academy (also known as the Nattika Fisheries School ground) in Thrissur, often under basic conditions with limited equipment. During a state meet early in their work together, he provided her with her first pair of spikes — a gesture that left a mark on Ancy’s memory.

By 2016, she had improved to 5.58 meters in national junior competitions. The progress was steady and real. Through the late school years, she competed across events — 100 meters, 200 meters, and long jump — building the sprint foundation that would later become her greatest asset on the runway.

In 2018, representing Government Fisheries Higher Secondary School, Nattika, she competed at the 15th Kerala State Inter-District Club Athletics Championship in Thiruvananthapuram, and her trajectory began accelerating. The following year, 2019, she clocked a personal best of 11.82 seconds in the 100 meters — still her official all-time best in the event — at a national competition, signaling that her raw speed was reaching an elite level.

Breakthrough: The Khelo India Games and a National Record

If one moment marked Ancy Sojan’s arrival on the national scene, it came on January 12, 2020, at the Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati. Over the course of a single extraordinary day, she won two gold medals — first soaring to 6.36 meters in the women’s under-21 long jump, shattering the previous national U-21 record of 6.15 meters held by Sherin Abdul Gafoor, and then later that same afternoon clocking 11.89 seconds to win the under-21 100-meter dash, making her the fastest woman at the entire Games. Before the day was out, she had also contributed to gold medals in the 200 meters and the 4x100m relay. Four gold medals in a single day. The national record shattered. The name Ancy Sojan was suddenly one that Indian athletics would not forget.

Those performances at the Khelo India Games also caught the attention of the Virat Kohli Foundation, which added her to its portfolio of young Indian athletic talent — recognition that brought both visibility and resources to a family that had stretched every rupee to support her development.

Equally important, those performances caught the eye of selectors at the Athletics Federation of India, and Ancy was included in national training camps for the first time, accessing the kind of structured coaching and facilities that had previously been unavailable to her.

The Sprint-to-Jump Transition: A Calculated Move

For several years after the 2020 Khelo India Games breakthrough, Ancy continued competing seriously in both sprints and the long jump at national level. She earned a bronze medal in the 200 meters at the Under-23 National Championships in New Delhi in September 2021 — a tangible reminder of just how good a pure sprinter she was. Her personal best in the 200 meters sits at 24.24 seconds, set in January 2021.

But by 2021, a clear-eyed analysis of her potential led to a decision: the long jump would be the primary focus. Her exceptional speed — an asset in the 100 and 200 meters — translated directly into runway velocity, giving her a ceiling in the long jump that might be considerably higher than what she could achieve on the track alone. In the long jump, speed is not merely helpful; it is decisive. An athlete who can generate elite sprint mechanics on the runway arrives at the board with explosive potential that technique alone cannot replicate.

She described it with characteristic directness: “100m and 200m, I was good. But in the long jump, I could see something more.”

That instinct has proven correct.

The 2022 Season: A Consistent Rise

Ancy’s first full season as a dedicated long jumper produced an impressive run of results that announced her as one of India’s genuine national-level contenders. Competing under the banner of the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB), she posted a string of performances that demonstrated both competitive quality and consistency:

A gold medal at the Indian Open Jumps Competition in Trivandrum (6.51m), followed by a gold at the Indian Grand Prix in Trivandrum in March (6.55m, a new personal best at that time), then a silver at the National Federation Cup in Chennai (6.33m), another silver at the Indian Grand Prix in Bhubaneswar (6.35m), and a silver at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championship in Bhubaneswar (6.49m). She also won gold at the XXXII Qosanov Memorial in Kazakhstan, an international event that demonstrated her ability to perform on foreign soil.

Perhaps the most significant milestone of the 2022 season was her selection for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham — her first major multi-sport Games appearance. At just 21 years old, she qualified as India’s representative in the women’s long jump. The Birmingham competition was sobering: she managed a best of 6.25 meters in qualifying, finishing 13th overall and narrowly missing a spot in the final (the top 12 advanced). But the experience was valuable in ways that results alone cannot measure. She had competed on one of world sport’s biggest stages, against athletes who were household names in their respective countries, and she had held her form under pressure.

The 2022 season cemented her position in the national training structure and as part of India’s TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) development group, providing financial support that relieved the burden on her family for the first time in her career.

Education: Balancing Books and the Runway

While many young athletes at the national level choose to defer or abandon formal education entirely, Ancy Sojan earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History at St. Thomas College (Autonomous) in Thrissur — a respected institution that has been proud to claim her as one of its own, publishing announcements of her national medal wins on its official channels. She enrolled around 2020 and completed the degree by 2023, managing academic attendance alongside national training camps and competitions. It is a balance that requires discipline and planning that goes far beyond what the competition calendar demands, and it reflects a sense of purpose and groundedness that has served her well.

The Asian Games: A Personal Best and Continental Silver

The 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, represented a watershed moment. Ancy Sojan entered the competition in strong form, and when it mattered most — on her final jump — she delivered. Her leap of 6.63 meters was a significant personal best, a number that announced her arrival among Asia’s true elite in the event. The gold medal went to China’s 19-year-old Shiqi Xiong (6.73m), but Ancy’s silver was India’s only athletics medal in horizontal jumps at the Games, and it came with a jump that placed her in the top tier of Asian competitors.

Equally notable was what did not happen: fellow Indian Shaili Singh — herself an excellent jumper — fouled the jump that could have beaten Ancy, finishing fifth at 6.48m. The long jump competition at the Asian Games illustrated how fine the margins are at this level, and how much mental composure matters when the stakes are highest. Ancy fouled her third attempt but had already secured silver on the strength of her other jumps. She showed she could hold it together under pressure.

Training Infrastructure: The Inspire Institute of Sport

Following her Asian Games silver, Ancy’s training relocated to the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) in Vijayanagar, Karnataka — one of India’s most advanced private high-performance training centers, operated with the support of JSW Sports. The move brought with it access to world-class facilities, a multidisciplinary support team including physiologists, nutritionists, and physiotherapists, and coaching under Anoop Joseph, who has taken over the technical direction of her long jump development from her formative years under Kannan sir.

The upgrade in infrastructure has been significant. Ancy has spoken about what the Reliance Foundation’s support specifically means in practical terms: “They’ve given me everything — nutrition, physios, recovery support, mental health check-ins.” For an athlete who spent her early development at a fisheries school ground with borrowed spikes, the contrast is stark. It has not made her complacent; it has made her sharper.

2024: A National Title and a New Personal Best

The 2024 season brought Ancy’s best single performance to date. At the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships at Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore on September 2, 2024, she won the women’s long jump gold medal with a leap of 6.71 meters — a new personal best and one of the longest jumps ever recorded by an Indian woman. The performance was exceptional enough that she was named the Best Female Athlete at the championships, an honor reflecting the quality of her competition across the full field of Indian women’s athletics.

The 6.71-meter mark is a serious number. It places her among the historical elite of Indian women’s long jump, and it represents a trajectory that, if continued, could see her challenge the 7-meter barrier that she has publicly set as her personal target.

2025: Continental Silver and Growing Consistency

The 2025 season confirmed that Ancy Sojan is not a one-competition athlete; she is a consistent competitor capable of performing at the highest continental level across the full calendar year.

She opened the international season with a silver medal at the UAE Athletics Women’s Gala in Dubai (6.54m), then qualified for and competed at the World University Games in Rhine-Ruhr, Germany, where she reached the final and placed eighth with 6.29 meters.

The signature result of the year came at the 26th Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea, in late May — a competition that doubles as a key qualifying event for the World Athletics Championships. In the women’s long jump final, Ancy jumped 6.33 meters to claim silver. The gold went to Iran’s Reihaneh Mobini Arani (6.40m), while Ancy’s Reliance Foundation training partner and India teammate Shaili Singh took bronze at 6.30m. For India to place first and second in a continental championship long jump final is a remarkable result for the state of the event in the country; it speaks to the genuine depth that has developed in Indian women’s horizontal jumping over the past half-decade — and Ancy Sojan is at the heart of that story.

She followed the Asian Championships silver with bronze at the Taiwan Athletics Open in Taipei (6.39m), and later added another bronze at the Lignano Continental Tour in Italy, a World Athletics Bronze-level event (6.36m). The consistency across different surfaces, climates, and competition environments is one of the hallmarks of a maturing international athlete.

2026: Indoor Bronze and a Strong Season Start

Ancy wasted no time making her mark in 2026. At the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships held in Tianjin, China, in February, she claimed the bronze medal in the women’s long jump with a best leap of 6.21 meters — contributing to an impressive five-medal haul for India at the continental indoor meet. The podium finish was her third consecutive medal at a major Asian championship (following the 2023 Asian Games silver and the 2025 Asian Athletics Championships silver), confirming that her performance at the highest level of the continent is not a fluke but a pattern.

On the World Athletics rankings, she currently sits at number 72 in the world in the women’s long jump — a meaningful position for an athlete who has only been focused on the event for a few years, and one that she is actively working to improve.

The Seven-Meter Dream

Ask Ancy Sojan about her goals and she will not be vague. She wants to be the first Indian woman to jump 7.00 meters in the long jump — a barrier that, in Asia, only one woman has ever cleared. When she says this to people, she says, she gets a familiar response: “That’s not possible for an Indian woman.” Her answer is equally consistent: “Just wait and watch.”

It is not bravado. It is a calculated ambition grounded in a clear understanding of where her performance has come from and where it could go. She was jumping 5.58 meters a decade ago. She broke 6.00 meters with a national record at 18. She hit 6.55 meters at 21 as a newly dedicated long jumper. She reached 6.63 meters at 22 on the Asian Games stage. She hit 6.71 meters at 23 to win the national title. The progression is not random.

She has also spoken about the broader ambition: the Diamond League, for which a competitive mark of 6.80 to 7.00 meters would likely be required. “It’s not easy, but yes, I’d love to be there one day,” she has said. “It’s something I’m aiming for.”

Neeraj Chopra’s historic javelin gold at the Tokyo Olympics changed the conversation in Indian athletics, Ancy has noted, in a way that benefits every Indian track and field athlete. “Earlier, just qualifying for the Olympics was a big deal. Now we talk about top-8 finishes, podiums. When he won gold, it changed everything. Suddenly, every athlete began to believe: if he can, why not me?”

Competitive Career Highlights at a Glance

• 2020 Khelo India Youth Games (Guwahati): 4 gold medals (100m, 200m, Long Jump U-21 with national record 6.36m, 4x100m relay)
• 2022 Commonwealth Games (Birmingham): Qualified, placed 13th in qualification (6.25m)
• 2022 XXXII Qosanov Memorial (Kazakhstan): Gold, long jump
• 2022 Indian Grand Prix (Trivandrum): Gold, long jump (6.55m PB at the time)
• 2022 National Inter-State Senior Athletics: Silver, long jump (6.49m)
• 2023 Asian Games (Hangzhou): Silver, women’s long jump (6.63m personal best at the time)
• 2024 63rd National Open Athletics Championships (Bangalore): Gold, long jump (6.71m personal best); Best Female Athlete award
• 2025 UAE Athletics Women’s Gala (Dubai): Silver, long jump (6.54m)
• 2025 Asian Athletics Championships (Gumi, South Korea): Silver, women’s long jump (6.33m)
• 2025 Taiwan Athletics Open (Taipei): Bronze, long jump (6.39m)
• 2025 Lignano Continental Tour (Italy, World Athletics Bronze level): Bronze, long jump (6.36m)
• 2026 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships (Tianjin, China): Bronze, long jump (6.21m)

Personal Bests:

• Long Jump: 6.71m (September 2, 2024, Bangalore)
• 100m: 11.82 (February 10, 2019)
• 200m: 24.24 (January 27, 2021)

World Athletics Ranking: #72 (Women’s Long Jump, as of early 2026) World Athletics Athlete Code: 14791355

Sponsorships and Institutional Support

Ancy Sojan is supported by two of India’s most significant athletic backing programs. The Reliance Foundation, India’s largest private foundation in sports development, has been a cornerstone of her support infrastructure, covering nutrition, physiotherapy, mental health resources, and competitive access. She was an active participant in Reliance Foundation’s Olympic Day 2025 celebrations, serving as an ambassador alongside archery legends Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das — a clear indication of the regard with which the foundation views her among India’s rising sporting stars.

She is also a PUMA athlete, one of the global sportswear brand’s sponsored Indian track and field competitors — an association that reflects the commercial recognition of her stature in Indian athletics.

Earlier in her career, she received backing from the Virat Kohli Foundation, which helped bring attention to her achievements at a time when she was still establishing her national profile following her 2020 Khelo India breakthrough.

She has also trained under India’s TOPS Development Group (Target Olympic Podium Scheme), the government’s structured program for athletes identified as potential Olympic medal prospects.

Social Media

Ancy Sojan maintains an active presence on Instagram at @ancysojan_official, where she documents her training, competition experiences, and life on the circuit. Her profile, with over 26,000 followers, describes her simply and confidently: “🇮🇳 Longjumper 🇮🇳 | Asian Games silver 🥈 | Asian Champs 🥈 | Kazakhstan Invitation Tour 🥇 | Reliance Foundation 💘 | Puma Athlete.”

The Bigger Picture

Ancy Sojan’s story is not merely an athletics story, though it is certainly a very good one of those. It is a story about what happens when natural talent meets an environment of principled support — from a father who saved up for a pair of Nike shoes so his daughter could compete, to a coach who showed up with spikes at a state meet, to a foundation that pays for nutrition and recovery. It is also about what happens when an athlete is honest about what she is capable of and refuses to accept the limits that others set for her.

She grew up in a house where sport was loved but could not always be afforded. She has made herself into one of the most decorated active women’s long jumpers in Indian history. The curtain of medals she talked about in her childhood home is a little heavier now, with continental silverware among the collection.

The 7-meter barrier is still ahead of her. But if the trajectory of the last decade is any indication, those who told her it was impossible may want to start reserving their seats to watch her try.