Srinagar, Aug. 22 -- 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 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, as per a press release from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) Media.

Four years...