Deepika Kumari: Bowing to None

Former world number 1 Deepika Kumari secured her place for the Tokyo Olympics after winning the first spot at the Continental Qualification Tournament in 2019. The competition was held along with the 21st Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok.

Deepika Kumari: One of India's Finest Archers

She was the top seed going into the tournament and her performances did justice to it. Deepika defeated Nur Afisa Abdul Halil of Malaysia 7-2, Zahra Nemati of Iran 6-4 and local Narisara Khunhiranchaiyo 6-2 to book her place for the Olympics. She said, "We were a little bit nervous earlier in the day. There was too much wind also. I just concentrated on my breathing and told myself 'just do it'. I'm feeling good right now." Her next target is to secure a team berth in the Olympics via the Archery World Cup. However, due to the worldwide pandemic, the 2020 world cup in Berlin was cancelled and will be held at Shanghai this year.

Life of Deepika Kumari 

The 26-year-old archer from Jharkhand has a quite exciting and inspirational story as she soared to the top in world archery. Deepika was born in 1994 in Jharkhand. She used to throw stones to get mangoes from the trees as a child. 

The Arjuna award recipient started doing archery with a bamboo bow and arrow as her family could not afford the necessary equipment at first. But her cousin Divya Kumari, an archer at the Tata Archery Academy, guided her to reach her potential.

Deepika Kumari Receiving the Arjuna Award

But the road to the field to archery was not smooth for her. Her parents, were not particularly happy when she started her career. Moreover, they had to adjust their expenditure in order to facilitate their daughter’s dream of being an archer. In her own words, “From where I come, people do not know about archery. So, when my father heard I wanted to pick up archery, he was not very happy… But I was determined. There is a small academy in Kharsawan run by Meera Munda (Arjun Munda’s wife). I began archery there and then moved to the Tata Archery Academy.” After Deepika’s double-gold in the Commonwealth Games 2010 held in Delhi, her proud parents admitted that she proved them wrong.

 After the start of her career, she never had to look back and became world number 1 after a few years.

Success-Teen at Sixteen Deepika won the Youth World Archery Championship in 2009 and became the second Indian to achieve the feat after Palton Hansda won the junior compound competition at the 2006 Archery World Cup. After this performance, she represented India at the CWG Delhi in 2010. And at the age of 16, the archer won two golds in the competition. One individually and one in the team event. This earned her the Outstanding Performance at CWG (Female) Award at the 2010 Sahara Sports Awards. She was mentored by her teammate Dola Banerjee. 

After the Commonwealth Games, things looked bright for the young archer. Her promising performances continued at the Asian Games 2010, held in Guangzhou, China. However, in the bronze-medal play-off game of the individual event, she fell short against Kwon Un Sil of North Korea. But she got to get on the podium after the Indian team of Deepika, Rimil Buriuly and Dola Banerjee won their bronze medal play-off game 218-217 against Chinese Taipei in the team event.

 Then she contested in the Archery World Cup 2011 held in Ogden and came away with a trio of silver medals in her bag, in the individual, team and mixed team events. Then in the same year, she also contested her first World Archery Championships event in Turin, Italy, and came away with a silver medal in the women’s team event, paired up alongside Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro.

The year 2012 must bring mixed feelings to the talented youngster as she had many good memories and a bad Olympics. 

Deepika With an Eye for the Prize

In 2012, she rose to the peak of the world ranking. She won her first gold in the World Cup at Antalya, Turkey and became the World Number 1 in the rankings. 

Then she received the Arjuna award for her exceptional performances and contribution to the field of archery. 

Then she won three golds in 2013 in the World Cup and in Asian Archery Championships. All in team events. She also won two silvers in two individual events. 

In 2014, she failed to qualify for the national team after finishing outside top 4 in the qualifying stage. But Forbes India featured her in their ’30 Under 30’ campaign. 

In 2015, she added more silverware to her collection. She along with Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly won the silver medal at the World Championships held at Copenhagen, Denmark. She also secured a silver medal in the World Cup finals. Moreover, Deepika, in team events, won two more bronze medals. 

In 2016, at the Rio Olympics, she didn’t reach the heights expected of her and it ended in disappointment. 

But in this year, she received Padma Shree award in the sports category. It was another golden feather in her hat. 

Her last gold came in the World Cup at Saltlake City in 2018 in the individual event. Then she earned her spot in the Tokyo Olympics in 2019.

 Performances at the Olympics

 Deepika has performed brilliantly at every level of her archery career. However, at the Olympics, her stats are not great. 

Deepika participated in her first Olympic games in London 2012. But due to health issues and bad weather conditions on the matchday, she failed to make it past the opening round after losing to British Amy Oliver.

After bowing out in a disappointing fashion in the 2012 games, she went to Rio in 2016 with confidence and hope to make the podium. But again, it didn’t go to plan. Indian team finished seventh after losing the quarter final against Russia. However, it all started brightly for the 22-year-old in the individual event. She won both the round-of-64 and round-of-32 games quite convincingly. She defeated Kristine Esebua of Georgia and Guendalina Sartori of Italy in that order. Then it all fell apart at the round-of-16 when she lost to Tan Ya-ting 0-6 quite remarkably.

Final Words 

Deepika has a biographic documentary on her called ‘Ladies First’. It was made by Uraaz Bahl and Shaana Levy-Bahl. It is quite an inspirational documentary which collected much praise from around the globe. Maneka Gandhi, the then Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development, was involved to promote awareness about women in sports in the country with the help of this documentary. 

Later, in 2020, Deepika married her fellow archer Atanu Das and they both look to continue their career in archery and develop further together.

Deepika Kumari and her Husband Atanu Das

In the upcoming Olympics, expectations will be high for Deepika to break her Olympic duck and finish at the podium. It is the only medal that is missing from her cabinet already full of prizes. Tokyo Olympics, set to start in July 2021, might be her best chance of winning the much-coveted Olympic medal.

“Every person grapple with self-doubt, but when I failed, I discovered that failure is not a bad thing. When you fail, you get the opportunity to learn the things you don’t learn when you win. When you fail, you get the time to rewind and understand what you missed—this helps you identify the areas you need to improve.”

                              - Deepika Kumari on Overcoming Failure

She has been truly inspirational for people around the country, especially from rural areas, who want to pursue the career of sports. It has been a long, glittering journey already, but we all hope that we have not seen the best out of her yet. We all from KheLoVerse wish All the Best to Deepika for the Tokyo Olympics. 

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