The face of Indian Archery with sky-high ambitions: Deepika Kumari

Once Jonas Salk has said -

There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.

That’s how Indian archer Deepika Kumari is ascending in the path of hard work, glory, and success. The 26-year-old archer is currently ranked No. 9 in the recurve women’s category. The star archer has represented the nation on many international platforms including World Cup, Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. In 2012, she gained the World No.1 position after winning the World Archery Cup and since then has hustled against all the odds to remain in the top 10 list. Deepika’s extraordinary journey is an example of how true devotion can clear the obstacles in the path. Film Director Uraaz Bahl beautifully documented her struggle in a documentary called “Ladies First”. 

Early life and struggles

Deepika was born on 13th June 1994 in Ratu Chatti, a village 15 km away from Ranchi, Jharkhand. The athlete is born to father Shivnarayan Mahato, an autorickshaw driver, and mother Geeta Mahato, a nurse. Vidya Kumari, Deepika’s cousin, was a Tata Archery Academy student who inspired the athlete. Coming from an indigent family, Deepika made her first archery bow and arrows with bamboo sticks. Deepika had her first formal learning experience in 2005 at Arjun Archery Academy at Kharsawan. Within a year, she started her professional archery training in Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur. The academy helped her in training with proper archery equipment and even gave her a stipend of Rs. 500.

Road to become a successful archer

Photo credit - Bill Hails / CC BY-ND 2.0 / flickr

In 2006, Deepika was the second Indian archer after Palton Hansda to win the junior compound competition in the Archery World Cup. In 2009, she emerged victorious in the 11th Youth World Archery Championship in the US. Next year, she participated in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. She excelled in the tournament by winning two gold medals. One of her medals came in the individual recurve event and other in the women’s team recurve event. In 2012, she won her first Archery World Cup individual recurve gold medal at Antalya, Turkey. Next year, she buckled up well and won the gold medal in Archery World Cup stage 3 organized in Medellin, Colombia. In the 2013 FITA Archery World Cup, she won her third Silver medal after losing to Yun Ok-Hee of South Korea.

In 2014, she was honoured with the FICCI Sportsperson of the Year award. In the same year, she was also featured in the Forbes (India) magazine in the “30 under 30” article. In 2015, she started her medal tally with bronze in the World Cup. Later, she won a silver medal in the team event with Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly at the World Championship, Copenhagen. In 2016, she outshined in the first stage of World Cup where she equalled Ki Bo-bae’s world record (686/720) in the women’s recurve event, held in Shanghai.

In 2012, Deepika received the Arjuna Award, India’s second-highest sporting award, and was honoured with the country’s fourth-highest civilian honour, Padma Shri in 2016.

She was selected for the Tokyo 2020 games. The event got cancelled and is rumoured to be rescheduled in 2021. Her high ambition and dedication is the key factor behind all her success.

We hope Deepika will ace all her future competitions and make the nation proud.