Anju Bobby George Jumped 6.70 m in Paris on 30 August 2003 to Win Long Jump Bronze, India's First Medal at the World Athletics Championships, 4 cm Behind Silver and 7 cm Ahead of Fourth

Anju Bobby George jumped 6.70 m on the fifth of her six attempts in the women’s long jump final at the Stade de France in Paris on 30 August 2003. It put her third, behind Eunice Barber of France (6.99 m) and Tatyana Kotova of Russia (6.74 m), and made her the first Indian to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships. Neeraj Chopra’s World Athletics profile lists the Indian medals that followed: javelin silver on 23 July 2022 and gold on 27 August 2023.

The final, attempt by attempt

World Athletics’ results table gives the final a start of 18:05 on 30 August. Twelve women jumped, and the best eight took three more attempts each. George had reached the final as sixth in qualifying with 6.59 m, one of the twelve best marks, since the automatic mark was 6.65 m. ESPN describes the evening as cold and drizzly.

Her six jumps, with the wind reading in metres per second, were these.

• Attempt 1: 6.61 m (+0.4)
• Attempt 2: foul
• Attempt 3: foul
• Attempt 4: 6.56 m (+0.8)
• Attempt 5: 6.70 m (+1.2)
• Attempt 6: 6.62 m (+0.1)

Jade Johnson of Britain had gone ahead of her in round three with 6.63 m. George’s fifth jump moved her past Johnson, whose best stayed at 6.63 m, seven centimetres short. Kotova’s 6.74 m, from her second attempt, was four centimetres further than George’s best. Barber won with 6.99 m on her sixth and last attempt, a season best, with a wind of +0.4. World Athletics marks George’s 6.70 m as a season best as well. Olga Rublyova of Russia was fifth with 6.58 m and Tünde Vaszi of Hungary sixth with 6.53 m.

ESPN reports that George thought the fifth jump had been flat, and that her legs tangled in the landing. She dropped her head and hit the sand, it says, and then the numbers on the board put her in medal position.

A fortnight of rest before the final

George and her husband and coach, Robert Bobby George, had spent the 2003 season in Europe, ESPN says, and she trained for a short time with Mike Powell, the world long jump record holder. Earlier that year she had finished seventh in the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham with 6.40 m on 16 March, by World Athletics’ record.

The Bridge, quoting an article on the Olympics website, says that after a run of Grand Prix meets she arrived in Paris in poor shape, with her body swollen and barely able to walk. It says her husband took her on what looked like a holiday, two weeks of resting and sightseeing with the odd jog, and that she later understood it as a plan to let her recover before the final. She has said in a post in December 2020, which The Bridge quotes, that she competed with a single kidney, a fact she learned in 2001.

The Bridge’s account of the final itself differs from the official table. It places the 6.70 m jump on her last attempt, where World Athletics shows it at attempt five, and it describes missing take-off check marks that knocked out Fiona May after her fifth attempt. World Athletics’ series shows May’s jumps ending after three attempts. This article follows the official table.

From Changanassery to the Commonwealth and Asian Games

Olympedia and World Athletics give her birth as 19 April 1977 in Changanassery, Kerala. Kerala.com says she began in the heptathlon before concentrating on the jumps, and that Bobby George, a mechanical engineer and former national triple jump champion, gave up his own career in 1998 to coach her full time.

The senior results came in 2002. World Athletics records bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester on 29 July with 6.49 m, and ESPN notes that Johnson took silver there. On 7 October she won the Asian Games long jump in Busan with 6.53 m, which is gold in World Athletics’ honours list and in Olympedia’s. ESPN gives the Indian record at the time of the Paris final as 6.74 m, four centimetres better than her bronze-winning jump.

Four years later she added a silver at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha with 6.52 m, on 10 December, and finished sixth at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne with 6.54 m.

Athens in 2004 and two results that later changed

At the Athens Olympics, Olympedia’s table shows her qualifying eighth with 6.69 m and jumping 6.83 m in the final on 27 August 2004, which World Athletics lists as her personal best. Tatyana Lebedeva won with 7.07 m in a Russian sweep of the medals, and Bronwyn Thompson of Australia was fourth with 6.96 m. Olympedia says George opened the Games as India’s flagbearer and also carried the flag at the closing ceremony. ESPN wrote in 2016 that the 6.83 m was still the national record.

Her Athens place is given two ways. Scroll says she finished sixth on the night and moved up to fifth when the American Marion Jones was disqualified. Olympedia’s table shows Jones, whose final mark was 6.85 m with a following wind, as disqualified, and ranks George fifth. World Athletics also lists fifth. Kerala.com’s profile still says sixth.

The 2005 season had a second change. World Athletics lists George as first in the long jump at the World Athletics Final in Monaco on 9 September 2005 with 6.75 m. Gulf News reported that she was originally given silver and that the medal was upgraded to gold after the International Association of Athletics Federations, as it was then named, disqualified Kotova following a retest of a 2005 sample, which it says was positive for formestane. ESPN gives the same upgrade and dates it to 2014. The same report moved her 2005 World Championships place in Helsinki up to fourth, and World Athletics lists her 6.66 m there on 10 August as fourth. On 4 September 2005 she won the Asian Championships in Incheon with 6.66 m.

She competed at a second Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Olympedia records no valid mark for her in qualifying on 19 August.

Honours and what she did next

The Athletics Federation of India lists her Arjuna Award in 2002 and her Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2003, and The Bridge adds the Padma Shri in 2004. Kerala.com dates the first two awards to the 2002 to 2003 and 2003 to 2004 sports years and calls the Padma Shri India’s fourth highest civilian award. Two other Indian women’s results on the global stage are covered in P. T. Usha’s 1984 Olympic final and Seoul Asian Games golds and Karnam Malleswari’s bronze at Sydney 2000.

World Athletics named her its Woman of the Year at its awards night on 1 December 2021, Scroll reported. The body credited her with developing talent in India and promoting gender equality. She opened a training academy for girls in 2016, Scroll says, and it has already produced a world under-20 medallist. At the time she was a senior vice-president of the Athletics Federation of India.

What followed at the championships

In The Bridge’s December 2023 interview George said she believed she had competed in the wrong era, given how much conditions for athletes had improved since Neeraj Chopra’s medal. Chopra’s World Athletics profile lists silver at the 2022 championships in Eugene with 88.13 m, gold in Budapest on 27 August 2023 with 88.17 m, and eighth in Tokyo on 18 September 2025 with 84.03 m. The full record of those throws is in the tuput piece on Chopra and the javelin.