Anju Bobby George was the first Indian athlete to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships, taking long jump bronze in Paris in 2003. A year later she finished fifth at the Athens Olympics with a jump of 6.83 metres, which remains the Indian national record. Asian Games gold, a Commonwealth Games medal and a World Athletics Final title complete the record of the most successful Indian field athlete of her generation.
Name: Anju Bobby George | Born: 19 April 1977, Changanassery, Kottayam district, Kerala | Sport: Athletics | Event: Long jump
Early years in Kerala
Anju grew up in Cheeranchira, a village near Changanassery in Kottayam district. Like many Kerala athletes she started young and tried several events before settling on the horizontal jumps. Her early progress came through school and state meets, and she later married Robert Bobby George, a former national triple jump champion who became her coach. The partnership shaped her career, and it was under his coaching that she went from national champion to world medallist.
Manchester and Busan, 2002
The 2002 season was her breakthrough. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester she won bronze in the long jump. Later that year, at the Asian Games in Busan, she took the gold medal, establishing herself as the leading jumper in Asia. Two major medals in one season made her the athlete to watch in Indian athletics going into 2003.
Bronze in Paris
At the 2003 World Championships in Paris she jumped 6.70 metres to win bronze. No Indian athlete, man or woman, had won a medal at the World Championships before, and for many years she was the only one. It was the result that changed how Indian athletics saw itself in field events. She achieved it while competing with only one functioning kidney, a fact she spoke about publicly many years later.
Fifth in Athens
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens she produced the longest jump of her life, 6.83 metres, to finish fifth in the final. More than two decades later that mark is still the Indian national record in the women’s long jump. A fifth place was then one of the best finishes by an Indian in an Olympic athletics final.
World Athletics Final and the Asian medals
She won the Asian Championships title in Incheon in 2005, and later that year finished second at the World Athletics Final in Monaco, the season-ending meeting for the year’s best athletes. Years later she was upgraded to gold after Tatyana Kotova of Russia was disqualified following the re-testing of a 2005 sample. She took silver at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and silver again at the 2007 Asian Championships in Amman.
A record in context
Taken together, her results cover every level of the sport. She won medals at the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games, the Asian Championships, the World Championships and the World Athletics Final, and she reached an Olympic final in which she beat her own best by a clear margin. For an athlete from a country with little history in the horizontal jumps, it was a run of consistency that set a new standard for Indian field events.
Honours and life after competition
Anju received the Arjuna Award in 2002 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India’s highest sporting honour, for 2003-04. The Padma Shri followed in 2004. In March 2021 she received a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year awards. She worked for the Customs department in Bangalore and has stayed closely involved with the sport as an administrator, serving as a senior vice-president of the Athletics Federation of India. Her national record from Athens has outlasted every challenge from the jumpers who followed her.
Career record and honours
- 2003 World Championships, Paris: bronze, long jump (6.70m), India’s first World Championships medal
- 2004 Olympic Games, Athens: fifth, long jump (6.83m, national record)
- 2005 World Athletics Final, Monaco: gold (upgraded from silver)
- 2002 Asian Games, Busan: gold
- 2006 Asian Games, Doha: silver
- 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester: bronze
- Asian Championships: gold, Incheon 2005; silver, Amman 2007
- Arjuna Award: 2002
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna: 2003-04
- Padma Shri: 2004
- BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year lifetime achievement award: 2021
