Anuganbi Takheilambam had to endure up to three days of travel without reservation while participating in national age competitions more than a decade ago.Hailing from Manipur, Anuganbi and other judokas from the state will first travel to Dimapur in Nagaland and then take a train to Kolkata. After changing trains there, they would continue on to their destination – be it Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh or somewhere further south – a journey that often took two days.Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!“Sometimes we sat on the floor next to the washrooms for two or three days during the journey. Despite the tough journey and competing without a coach, I always managed to bring home a medal – and that feeling was as good as winning a gold medal,” Inunganbi said while interacting with TOI.These experiences inspired her to keep going and last month she became the first Indian in 13 years to win a medal at the Asian Judo Championships, bagging a bronze medal in Ordos, China.In the bronze medal bout, Anugunbi defeated Mongolia’s Lakhagavadulam Sarantsitg, and the first to congratulate her was Angom Anita Chanu, who won bronze in the women’s -52kg category at the 2013 Asian Championships.Although this was not Anogunbi’s first international medal, she now has her sights set on qualifying for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. However, her former coach Devon Moerringtham wants her to aim for nothing less than an Olympic medal.“When she first came to me in 2008, I was impressed by her fearless attitude. She also had a lean body that was perfect for judo,” said Moeringtham, a close friend of her father, who trained her early at Imphal’s Khamman Limpak Sports Complex.She moved on to the National Sports Academy within a year and joined the Sports Authority of India (SAI) center in 2014, after which she started competing regularly at the national level.In 2017, she received her first Indian call-up, being selected for the Asian Junior Judo Championship, marking her entry into international competition. It was in the same year that he joined the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS).But a year later, he suffered a major setback after injuring his left knee, and was bedridden for months. “In 2018, I was physically very weak and unfamiliar with gym training, so recovery took longer,” said the 27-year-old.However, she came back strongly to win her first senior-level gold in 2022, and national medals followed, with an international title failing until 2025, when she won gold at the Oman Asian Open.Much of this progress has come with the support system in IIS. “Even before coming here, I have represented India at the international level, but this is where I truly understood what it means to prepare for the elite,” said Anuganbi, who currently trains under Baydwara in Bellary.Apart from the coaches and support staff at IIS, she also enjoys strong support from her parents and her husband, Olympian boxer Ashish Kumar Chaudhary, which will hopefully be enough to propel her to the top in the days to come.
