Deepika Kumari, India’s most decorated archer, with some unfinished business left at the Olympic Games, made her maiden international appearance as the mother of a year-old baby girl a memorable one by winning the women’s final in the first leg of the Asia Cup in Baghdad, Iraq, with a 6-2 (24-26, 27-26, 29-27, 29-24) victory over compatriot Simranjeet Kaur on Sunday.
“It’s good, but I expected this victory,” she told World Archery’s official website. “The match was good, but I really deserve this title because I have been preparing hard. Now I’m happy it’s resulted in winning.” Deepika, a former World No. 1, lost the first set 24-26 but the pair of 29s helped her secure the win with a set to spare.
Her victory over Simranjeet did not come as a surprise. She had beaten her higher-ranked team-mate at least twice in the span of month when she topped the charts after two phases of the selection trials for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games – held from January 10 to 17 at the SAI NCoE in Kolkata and February 9 to 16 at the Army Sports Institute in Pune.
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She missed making it to the Indian team at the Hangzhou Asian Games but went on a three-week stint to Korea with coach Kim Hyung-Tak in November as a step towards attending to the unfinished business. She said she had the hunger and the desire to do better in the Olympic Games than in her earlier appearances in London in 2012, Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.
She bowed out in the first round in London, at the pre-quarterfinal stage in Rio de Janeiro and in the quarterfinals in Tokyo where four of the nine arrows she shot in the match against An San (Korea) fetched her 7s. If Deepika makes it to Paris – and there is no reason she cannot – either as part of the women’s team or for the individual event, it would be her fourth appearance.
The trials in the new year offered proof of her regaining her competitive mojo. She found a consistency that others could not match. Her six wins in seven round robin matches at the end of the second phase of trials gave her 8 points, in addition to the 8 points each for topping the two phases, for a total of 24 points, three points clear of Bhajan Kaur and six clear of Simranjeet.
Currently ranked world No. 145, she finished second in the qualifying round in Baghdad with 657 but she dropped just one set in four matches during her run. But she would be the first to admit that while the success is welcome, the road ahead will be more challenging when her path crosses that of the Koreans, Chinese, the Chinese Taipei archers and other top guns in the months ahead.
The third phase of India’s trials will be held at the SAI NCoE in Sonipat from March 10 to 17. The Archery World Cup competitions in Shanghai (April 23 to 28) and Yecheon (May 21 to 26) will be held before the final Olympic qualification tournament in Antalya, Turkey, from June 14 to 17, ahead of the World Cup there from June 18 to 23.
It must be stated that no Indian woman archer has secured a berth at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games so far, but the final qualification tournament in Antalya offers three teams and two individuals the chance of booking tickets to France. Indian officials are confident that the team will clinch one of the berths in the competition to be held in Turkey.
Deepika has flown under the radar of public scrutiny so far but the win in the Asia Cup Stage 1 brings the spotlight back on her. How she deals with the glare will make for interesting tracking. Her fine showing in Baghdad in her maiden international meet after childbirth rekindles hopes that she would make it to the mother of all competitions, hold her nerve and make it count.
If the 29-year-old realises her dream of making it to her fourth Olympic Games in a row, Deepika will give herself a good chance of joining an elite club of super moms competing across different sports for India. By all accounts, she is making the right moves in that direction, not least by shooting her way back into the collective consciousness of Indian sports fans.
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