New Delhi: On 15th August as India celebrated Independence Day, the country’s junior and cadet archers also made the country proud with their magnificent achievements at the concluding day, of Youth World Archery Championship in Wroclaw (Poland) held between August 9 to 15, 2021.
The junior and cadet team’s campaign ended in the biggest event for youth with 15 medals (8 Gold, 2 Silver and 5 Bronze medals) which is India’s best ever performance in the Youth World Archery Championship. Compound Archers bagged 3 Gold, 2 Silver and 2 Bronze whereas Recurve Arches clinched 5 Gold and 3 Bronze in the presence of a total of 520 Archers.
Athletes also established world records. Two New Youth World Records by Indian Compound Cadet Girls Trio- PriyaGurjar, Parneet Kaur &RidhuVarshiniSenthikumar established the Cadet Compound Team World Record by securing 2067 out of possible 2160 points. The previous world record was held by the USA at 2045. Compound Cadet Mixed Duo – PriyaGurjar and KushalDalal established a new World Record of 1401 out of 1440 possible points. The previous world best was at 1387.
Prior to Wroclaw, Indian archers had won a total of 26 medals (6 Gold, 9 Silver and 11 Bronze) at the Youth World Archery Championships/Junior World (old name) and 15 medals alone in Wroclaw tells the success story of our Archers in the presence of more than 500 Archers of the world.
The event was significant in other terms also as 14 out of 24 archers went on to play an international event for the first time. Not only this, Five Youth archers who won medals, have also been selected as members of the senior team that is going to participate in the USA-World Championships-September, 2021.
After targeting Gold in the Junior Recurve in Poland, Komalika Bari became the second Indian after Deepika Kumari to win both the Cadet and Junior Recurve Women World Champions’ titles.
Team India, which emerged as the best performing nation at the World Youth Archery Meet organised by World Archery was felicitated by the Government here today.
Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur interacted with the World Youth Archery Championship winners and congratulated them for making the nation proud.
The gold medalists included the Cadet Compound Women’s Team, the Cadet Compound Men’s Team, the Junior Recurve Men’s Team, the Cadet Recurve Men’s Team, the Cadet Compound Men’s Team, the Cadet Recurve Mixed Team, the Junior Recurve Mixed Team and Komolika Bari, who won the gold in the Junior Recurve Women’s Individual event.
Komolika, who won two gold medals, in the individual and the mixed doubles events, also won the coveted medal at the 2019 World Cadet Championships. A part of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme Core team, Komalika, also another TATA Academy product, became the national champion in Women’s Individual Recurve at the 41st NTPC Junior Archery National Championship held in Dehradun in March 2021. Her tremendous rise came to the fore since the Khelo India games, where she had participated and made podium finishes at the Khelo India Youth Games 2019, 2020 as well as the University Games last year.
The silver medalists from the Poland meet, meanwhile, included Priya Gurjar, who won the Cadet Compound Individual Event and Sakshi Chaudhary from the Compound Junior Individual (Men and Women) event. The bronze medalists included Parneet Kaur in the Compound Cadet Women’s category, Rishabh Yadav in the Compound Junior Individual (Men and Women) event, Manjiri Manoj Alone and Bishal Changmai in the Recurve Cadet Individual (Men and Women) event as well as the Cadet Recurve Women’s Team.
Performance at a glance
Team Performances
- Cadet Compound Archers took all three possible team Gold medals (Boys Team, Girls Team and Mixed Team)
- Cadet Recurve & Cadet Compound Archers bagged all the 6 medals (5 Gold and 1 Bronze) for the first time.
Individual Performances
- Komalika Bari (U21 Junior Recurve) won Gold Medal and became the second Indian after Deepika Kumari to win both the Cadet and Junior Recurve Women World Champions’ titles.
- PriyaGurjar (U18 Cadet Compound) became the first Indian Archer to win two Gold medals at any Youth World Championship with a total of three medals (2 Gold+1 Silver). She was part of both the teams which established new World Records.
- BishalChangmai (U18 Cadet Recurve) became the first Indian Archer to win two Gold
medals at any Youth World Championship with a total of three medals including oneBronze. - Sakshi Chaudhary(U21 Junior Compound) became the first Indian woman Junior Compound archer to reach the final in the category and managed to win Individual Silver Medal in her debut International event.
Thakur heaped praise on the diversified and existing talent pool the country has at the grassroots level. “I congratulate all the young archers and wish them all the luck in the competitions ahead. As they transition to the senior team, they shall be getting all the possible support to compete at the high-performance level,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
