Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], December 3 (ANI): Reigning Asian champion high jumper Pooja underlined the Khelo India University Games (KIUG) 2025 as the perfect springboard for her return to competition, breaking the meet record with a 1.77 m effort to clinch gold in her maiden appearance.

Competing at Jaipur's Sawai Mansingh Stadium, the 18-year-old looked assured in her first outing after an ankle injury kept her out for nearly five months, using the event to recalibrate before shifting her attention to the far bigger target, the 2026 Asian Games.

Earlier this year, the 18-year-old had scripted history by becoming only the second Indian woman after Bobby Aloysius to win the Asian Championship high jump gold, scaling a personal best of 1.89 metres.

Born to a mason in Boston village in Haryana's Fatehabad district, Pooja had been recovering from the injury she sustained during training, a setback that forced her out of action for nearly five months and halted her momentum after a breakthrough 2024-25.

Once the KIUG dates were finalised, Pooja saw the event as an ideal platform to assess where she stood physically and mentally. Representing Lovely Professional University (LPU), she entered the competition intending to challenge her personal best. Though she fell short of the 1.89m mark, she was satisfied with her effort, which comfortably broke the existing KIUG record.

'I was attempting to get past my personal best here, but even then I'm happy to break the Meet Record and get a gold medal,' Pooja told SAI Media after her win. 'This was my first competition since I suffered the ankle injury five months back. I wanted to test myself in this competition,' she added.

She was equally effusive about the KIUG experience. 'It is my first Khelo India University Games, and I am happy to win a gold here. The facilities are at par with international standards. Unlike other competitions, athletes don't have to worry about travel or logistics, so we can entirely focus on our events,' she added.

As part of her rehabilitation and long-term development plan, Pooja has recently joined the Anju Bobby George Academy in Bengaluru. Her rise, however, began in the humblest of settings. Back in 2017, at coach Balwan Patra's modest training setup in Patra village near Bosti, a bamboo pole served as the crossbar, and sacks filled with rice husk were used as a landing pit. From those beginnings, she steadily progressed through the ranks, winning the Asian Youth gold in 2023 and adding an Asian Junior silver later that year.

Having finished sixth at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023 with a 1.80 m jump, Pooja now sees her KIUG performance as a crucial restart and a stepping stone toward securing her place at the 2026 Asian Games.

'The focus is definitely on the 2026 Asian Games,' she said.

'The injury disrupted my training for nearly five months, but now that I am back in competition mode, I want to avoid distractions and focus entirely on my training,' she concluded. (ANI)