Anand Shetty pioneered transition from kambala to athletics

BENGALURU: Even as the debate continues on whether a kambala jockey can be a successful athlete, old-timers recall the story of former national sprint champion Anand Shetty from Mangaluru who excelled in track and field after cutting his teeth on kambala in the late 1970s.
Anand, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 52 in a car crash, had a storied career as he proved his worth not just in athletics but also as a state-level kabaddi player.
Recalling the feats of the ‘Flying Bunt’, former Karnataka athlete Krishna Shenoy told TOI: “Anand announced his arrival on the state scene when he won the U-17 100m gold at the State Championship in Davanagere in 1979. I finished third behind him and late Vijay Rai, who came second. Soon, Anand shifted his focus from athletics and was into kabaddi from the end of 1979 to June-July 1981.”
“Anand had also competed in kambala racing. But that was before he emerged as a noted athlete. He came from a poor background from a remote village called Mani, near Bantwal, some 40km from Mangaluru. From class VII to class X, he studied at Dharmasthala after Dr Veerendra Heggade took him to his school.
"After his schooling, Vinay Hegde gave him a job in his firm, the Lamina Suspension and Springs in Mangaluru,” recalled Shenoy, who quit athletics in 1982 and shifted his focus to business.
'SON OF A KAMBALA JOCKEY'
Shetty returned to athletics in 1981 and began training with coach JM Appachu.
“Anand trained with me from 1981 to 1987. What I noticed was that he had amazing speed. When he first came to me for training, his dad also came along. He was a very fit man and they looked like brothers. It was then that I was told that Anand’s dad was a kambala racer. That’s why I think speed was in his genes,” the 64-year-old Appachu told TOI from Mangaluru.
Shenoy said Anand returned to athletics with a bang after a break of two years.
“He was selected to represent Karnataka in the Inter-State meet in Kozhikode in 1982 and he went on to grab a golden double — winning both the 100m and 200m. He was then selected for the national camp and competed in the World Junior athletics (an invitation meet in Seoul) where he won gold in 200m,” he said.
Back in New Delhi, Shetty hogged the limelight ahead of the trials for the 1982 Delhi Asian Games.
“The Open Nationals in New Delhi served as the trials for the Asiad and Anand beat Adille Sumariwala in both the 100m and 200m to make the India squad. Both Anand and Adille competed at the Asiad but failed to make the finals,” Shenoy said.
Besides winning multiple national titles in 100m and 200m between 1982 and 1989, the Mangalurean also won gold medals at the SAF Games. In the 1984 Games at Kathmandu, Anand won the 200m and three years later grabbed the 100m gold in Kolkata.
Former athlete Uday K Prabhu, who was Anand’s roommate at the Asian Games Village in 1982, said he -- along with Anand, Sunil Abraham, Damodar Gowda and David Premnath -- went on to work at the Telco office in Bengaluru before leaving the company in early 2000-01.
“It was then that Anand and I began working together at the Bangalore Sports Club,” Prabhu recalled.