Federation Cup: Annu Rani awaits sports ministry help in sending her back to Germany for training after visa complications

Annu Rani has been pleading with the Union sports ministry to send the javelin national record holder to Germany to resume her training with highly-rated coach Werner Daniels in Offenburg. The 30-year-old Commonwealth Games medallist participated in the Federation Cup in Ranchi on Tuesday to clinch the gold medal with ease.

Annu Rani, however, never planned on participating in the domestic tournament as she wanted to continue her foreign training alike other elite Indian athletes, including Neeraj Chopra, whose international camps are funded by the ministry under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS).

Annu's visa apparently exhausted after three months of training in Offenburg since February, forcing her to return to the homeland and since then she has been patiently awaiting her return to Germany with just weeks to go for the World Athletics Championships.

"I never intended to compete in the Federation Cup because I wanted to compete in a tournament in Germany on May 21," Annu Rani told myKhel in Ranchi on Tuesday. "The event in Germany has many strong participants and would have been a good preparation for me ahead of the World Athletics Championships.

"More importantly, I need to return to my German coach and continue my training because we worked on several things and made key changes to my technique during the three-month stint. All that will be wasted if I don't return to Germany."

Several efforts have been made to contact Sports Minister Anurag Thakur through his personal assistant as well to fast track the process of the visa but nothing concrete has come out of it yet, revealed the athlete, who also plans to compete in Asian Athletics Championships and Asian Games this year.

Annu Rani, who holds the national record at 63.82m, has long been the undisputed javelin queen of the country as she has won the national-level meets with ease for several seasons. Tuesday was no different as the 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist's 59.24 metre effort to gold was head and shoulder above second-placed Uma Choudhary, who thew 51.15m.

In Germany, on the other hand, Annu had the luxury to train with some of the best names in the javelin world, including Johannes Vetter, who has been the modern-day great with a personal best of 97.76m. Also, her coach Werner Daniels is an acclaimed name in the track and field world. The German is also the former trainer of now-retired Christina Obergfoll, who is a two-time Olympic silver medallist and

In fact, Daniels did some extensive work with Annu Rani since February as the Indian athlete revealed that the German corrected a fault in her technique early on, which helped her deal with a prolonged ankle injury that marred her 2022 season.

"Daniels pointed out that I have a weak ankle in the way I landed my foot during my throws and that explained why I was struggling with ankle injury for so long. He revamped the way I train as we worked on several key areas and the idea is to implement them into competition before the World Championships, that's also one of the reasons why I must be back in Europe to compete again," explained the athlete.

Taking a look at Indian athletes training abroad, Neeraj Chopra is in Europe as he prepares to compete in the prestigious FBK Games after winning the Doha Diamond League. Long jumpers M Sreeshankar, steeplechaser Avinash Sable and Parul Chaudhary have been training in the USA while triple jumpers Eldhose Paul and Abdullah Aboobacker have been training away as well among other athletes.