Scores are tied at 200 in the women’s team final in compound archery at the Asian Games on Thursday. Only three more arrows remain. All three Indian archers need to hit three 10s to ensure Chinese Taipei doesn’t grab the gold medal.
Parneet Kaur, Aditi Swami, and Jyothi Surekha Vennam deliver perfection. All score 10s to put the pressure on Chinese Taipei, whose first archer shoots a 9. India is assured of gold in the event, and eventually wins with a score of 230-229.
“My golden girls,” says a proud Sanjeeva Singh, India’s high-performance director of archery, standing behind the victorious trio posing with medals for photographers.
Later in the evening, Abhishek Verma, Ojas Pravin Deotale and Prathamesh Jawkar win the men’s team gold by beating South Korea 235-230 in the final.
The wins take India archery’s gold tally to three with three more Indians in the finals of the men’s and women’s individual events on Saturday. Incidentally, Abhishek and Ojas are facing each other in the final.
Jyothi, who also won the mixed team final on Wednesday, is on track for triple gold medal haul. There is the tantalising prospect of India ending up with all five golds in compound archery.
“South Korea fear us in compound archery now,” says Abhishek, who was part of the team that won India its first gold in archery at the Asian Games in 2010.
It was not too long ago when India and the rest of the world feared South Korea and its ruthless archers. For India, the seeds for the shift in the landscape of compound archery were sown 20 years ago. Sanjeeva can be credited for handholding this.
In 2003, Sanjeeva took the Indian recurve team to the World Championships in New York and saw compound archery for the first time. When he learnt more about it, he decided that compound archery was the way to go for India. Until this point, India had not seen success in the Olympics, Asian Games, and World Championships.
“When I saw this game, I brought it to India. They said, ‘Who is this guy? Why is he bringing compound archery to India? India has never won.’ But I knew India was well-suited to compound archery because of our physique,” says Sanjeeva. “This game helped all junior archers shorter in height to adapt. Everyone revolted against me. They said this game would never succeed. We started training people and it took me 20 years to bring five gold medallists at the Asian Games.”
Aditi, the youngest-ever world champion at the age of 17, who just stands at 5 feet 2 inches is a validation of Sanjeeva’s vision. “I don’t need to tell anybody [that I was right]. I know it in my heart,” says Sanjeeva. “I am happy I stood against time.”
Aditi, Ojas and Prathamesh are among the many talented youngsters coming through in Indian compound archery at the moment.
However, compound archery is still not part of the Olympics programme. World Archery has sent an application for this form of the sport to be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
“I hope it comes in 2028 in indoor form and we will be the first to win gold,” Sanjeeva proclaims. “I am setting up an indoor arena in the new high-performance centre being set up in Sonepat, which will be (operational) in full swing from January next year. Our groundwork is done and our talent pipeline is done. For any Olympic medal, you need to work eight years in advance and I have been working for 20 years. And by the time, compound archery is introduced to the Olympics, we will be ready.”
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Compound archery is different from recurve archery, which is already in the Olympics. In recurve archery, which uses the traditional bow, the draw weight is usually higher than in a compound bow, a mechanical form, which was first introduced in the USA. The poundage increases as the archer pulls the bow back in recurve bows, whereas in compound bows, the poundage shifts to the cables. The archers usually feel the weight of the bow during the start of the draw but feel it easier to control the ‘let-off’ when at full draw.
“When I started in 2004, there were just four compound archers in the country,” says Abhishek, a two-time Asian Games gold medallist. “Now there are more than 10,000 compound archers.”
India is in the midst of a phenomenal run in the discipline this year, tasting success in World Cups and World Championships. At the world championships in Berlin, India won its first three gold medals at the level and finished top of the medals tally for the first time.
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