Anita practises at a ground near her home in Nadia. Picture by Somnath Kundu

Ranaghat, April 12: Anita Das, the teenaged daughter of a train vendor, has a dream — to run like Usain Bolt. That dream may have found wings.

Sixteen-year-old Anita, who appeared for the Madhyamik this year, will fly to Australia on April 24 with five other Indian children to train in sprinting.

It’s a long flight from the obscure Nadia village of Nasirkuli but Anita knows the journey to become the fastest, like Bolt, is even longer.

Somehow, Anita thinks, she has found her track.

Anita is the winner of a 100m sprint in the under-16 category at a national talent hunt called Speedstar.

Like her hero Bolt, she comes from a humble family. “I read somewhere that Usain Bolt’s father used to run a grocery shop in a Jamaica village. I want to run like Bolt and I have resolved to do my best,” Anita said.

Speedstar, which is aimed at spotting the fastest sprinter in India, was organised by Kooh Sports, a corporate sports foundation, in association with the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and Griffith University in Australia.

An official of Kooh Sports said: “Our aim is to ensure broad-based adoption of athletics, which is the base of all sports, and to proliferate this concept into a child’s inherent desire to run.”

The 100m sprint contest was organised for boys and girls in three age groups. Around 20,000 children participated in the trials held between January 12 and February 3 in 10 cities, a Kooh Sports spokesperson said. From each city, six boys and six girls qualified for the finals.

Anita reserved her best for the Speedstar final, where she clocked 12.54 seconds.

At 5 feet 4 inches, she is not a tall athlete. “Poverty is a hindrance, but I will try my best,” Anita said. She said she was concerned about getting a healthy and nutritious diet.

The prize for winning Speedstar is a one-month training session at Griffith University in Queensland. “It is beyond my imagination. The opportunity to train abroad has inspired me a lot,” Anita said, sitting in her mud hut that has a tin roof.

She is the older of two daughters of Budhdhadeb Das, who sells fried nuts in trains.

Anita will undergo training sessions at the university’s Gold Coast campus with Australian athletic coach Sharon Hannan. The five other winners of Speedstar will also train with her.

Anita first drew attention four years ago when she won the 100m race in the under-14 category at the state open athletic meet at Salt Lake Stadium.

Last year, she participated in the national open meet in Lucknow where she came third, both in the 100m race and the long-jump competition in the under-16 age group. “After the national meet, I came to know about the talent hunt,” she said.

Her coach Tanup Halder and officials of the Vivekananda Sanskrit Parishad club, where Anita practises daily, are trying to arrange for money to purchase clothes, a sports kit, shoes and other items for the teenager.

“The university will not just train us in athletic techniques but also teach us about sports technology, sports science and sports medicine,” Anita said. “The university will bear all the expenses.”

Her father Buddhadeb said Anita’s talent was evident when she was just 11. “I took her to a sports meet organised by a club in Pairadanga. She was spotted by Tanup Halder there,” he said.

“Tanupbabu told Anita to attend his coaching session at Vivekananda Sanskrit Parishad in Kalinarayanpur, near Ranaghat, at least twice a week. Since then, he has been training her,” Buddhadeb said.

“Anita has the ability and the physique to be an ideal sprinter. Her tremendous effort makes her different from others. If she can develop her technique and get good food, she has the ability to stun the world. I think the training in Australia will help her greatly improve her skills,” Haldar said.