Srinagar, Aug. 22 -- After clinching a gold medal in Women's Canoeing C-1 200-meter at the Khelo India Water Games Festival 2025 on Friday, Rashmita Sahoo said she thought of leaving sports because of her family, but her father encouraged her to continue.

It was the culmination of years of the 23-year-old's hard work that fetched Rasmita 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 wit...