Odisha police

Khelo India Water Sports Festival: Two road accidents had brought devastation in the life of Odisha’s Rasmita Sahoo, but her gold medal in the women’s 200-metre canoe singles at Khelo India Water Sports Festival 2025 was no accident.

It was the culmination of years of the hard work that fetched the 23-year-old top honours when she clocked 53.53 seconds, ahead of athletes from Kerala and Madhya Pradesh in Srinagar’s iconic Dal Lake.

Rasmita, who hails from a fishing community of Choudwar, Cuttack, was just nine years old when her father, a fisherman, met with a motor accident in 2011, leaving him critically injured, and their five-member family without livelihood. Four years later, in 2015, her mother met with a similar road accident, but, unlike Rasmita’s father, she could not battle her injuries and passed away.