Until the Aggies' field events star arrived in Las Cruces, no NM State women's track & field student-athlete had ever made the cut for the NCAA Championships. By the time her record-breaking career was in the books, not only had Anku, who hailed from Accra, Ghana in Africa, shattered a number of program bests, she had become the first Aggie to compete on the sports' biggest stage.
Before punching her ticket to the national meet, Anku claimed an individual Big West Conference Indoor title in the triple jump during the 2000 season. Her championship jump of 42' 5 1/4" was impressive, but was less than four inches shy of the national qualifying mark.
That narrow miss fueled her through the 2001 outdoor season where she hit the qualifying mark with a triple jump of 43' 6" at the UTEP Spring Invitational. Headed into the national title meet in Oregon, Anku was ranked 12th nationally.
On June 1, 2001, Anku leaped her way into NM State immortality by putting forth a 40' 3 1/4" effort on her second triple jump try at the NCAA Division I Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Anku posted a 16th-place finish in the event
To this day, Anku holds the program record in a pair of events: the indoor high jump (1.72 meters set in 2001) and the outdoor triple jump (13.13 meters set in 2001).
