China’s Chengdu is hosting the World Games 2025, featuring approximately 4,000 athletes from over 100 countries, with 256 gold medals up for grabs. The World Games, first hosted by Santa Clara, USA, in 1981, has been held every four years since then. Organised by the International World Games Association, this multi-sport event showcases sports and disciplines not included in the Olympic Games programme. It features a diverse array of events such as American Football, Baseball and Softball, Billiards, Kickboxing, Floorball, Flying Disc, Karate, Muaythai, and more.
Although Archery is part of the Olympic programme, events that are not contested in the Olympics are included in the World Games. Archery at the World Games comprises two categories — Field and Target — further divided into Barebow and Recurve (Field), and Compound and Compound Team (Target).
As of now, the Indian contingent has secured only one medal — a bronze in men’s compound archery. Rishabh Yadav claimed that bronze after defeating his senior compatriot and mentor, Abhishek Verma, in a close-fought match, 149–147.
The World Games have never commanded much attention in the Indian sporting landscape. However, this solitary archery medal might hold a deeper significance.
To put things into perspective, former Indian Archery High Performance Director, Sanjeeva, shared his thoughts with RevSportz: “It was a very mature performance from Rishabh, and Abhishek was his mentor.
“Rishabh defeating his own mentor shows that the time has come for the juniors to take the throne, which holds a bigger value in terms of our Asian Games and Olympics dream,” he said.
With Japan set to host the Asian Games in 2026, and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games on the horizon — where Compound Archery will make its Olympic debut — the road ahead looks promising.
Sanjeeva elaborated on the broader implications: “With Compound Archery making its debut in the LA28 Games, we’ve seen that every other country has started to take compound archery seriously and they’re catching up.
“We’ve been a superpower in compound archery, and we’ve done really well on the world stage in the past few years, but the aim is to maintain the momentum,” he pointed out.
He further added, “Rishabh’s medal shows that the youngsters are coming up and are ready to perform on the international stage, which is an important sign, and India is developing a huge pool of young talented archers, both Compound and Recurve. Compound has a sure-shot chance at a podium in Los Angeles.”
The Games will continue till 17th August, and whether India will bag further medals remains to be seen.
Some other sports in which India has participated are Wushu (Roshibina Devi Naorem, Abhishek Jamwal, Namrata Batra); Billiards Sports (Natasha Chatham, Kamal Chawla, Shivam Arora, Sourav Kothari); Roller Sports (V. Anand Kumar, Aryanpal Singh Ghuman); Racquetball (Shilpa Devi, Kosetty Jyotheekalyan), with the other archers being Madhura Dhamangaonkar, and Parneet Kaur.
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