2003 to 2028: How a dream born in New York was reignited by compound archery’s inclusion at LA Olympics

“I was fascinated by the mechanical pull rings on the compound bow. The same year, I decided to shift from recurve to compound and competed at the 2004 National Championships in the first-ever compound events in the country. Since then, it has been a long journey for compound archers in India and to see a compound mixed team event at the Olympics is like getting upgraded from second class to first class after all these years,” Sanjeeva told The Indian Express.

A former Tata Steel Sports director, Sanjeeva would get recurve archers Bhagwati Chanu and Chano Hansdah to move to compound archery in 2004. For the next two years, he would travel across the country spreading the gospel, even selling some bows at a discount. “Compound has been seen as an ‘easy’ event as compared to recurve. But we saw it as a more complicated system using the full use of mechanics to make archery easier. For the first two years, we did not find any support. In 2006 when the Indian government decided to support us, we had to travel to Asia Cups and Asian Championships at our own expense,” shares Sanjeeva.

While India had its first junior world champion in compound archery – Paltan Hansda – in 2006, the year also saw compound events included in Archery World Cups. While India had multiple medallists in Asia Cups and Asian Championships in the next six years, it was not till the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, where compound archery was introduced, that Indians really made their mark.

Among the best

With Abhishek Verma winning the individual silver and team gold with Rajat Chauhan and Sandeep Kumar, and Trisha Deb winning the individual bronze and team bronze with Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Purvasha Shende, the Indian compound team would return home with four medals.

Indian compound archers Jyothi Vennam, Aditi and Parneet Kaur with Sanjeeva Singh and other coaches during one of the World Cups

“When I started in 2007, I only knew about Compound and never thought about competing in recurve. In 2012, when I saw a picture of South Korean archer Ki Bo-Bae winning the Olympic title, that was the first instance when I thought compound should also be at the Olympics. When compound archery was introduced at the 2014 Asian Games, we all saw it as our ‘Olympics’. We kept facing questions like ‘Event Olympics main toh hai nahin, toh kyun kar rahe ho’ (the event is not in the Olympics, why are you pursuing it)?” Jyothi told The Indian Express from the USA where she is competing at the Archery World Cup.

Chauhan would become the first Indian to win a medal at the world championships, when he won a silver in Denmark in 2015. Jyothi would become the first Indian woman to win a compound medal at the world championships in 2019. At the last World Championships in Germany, youngsters Ojas Deotale and Aditi Swami became world champions while the Indian women’s team of Jyothi, Bhajan Kaur and Aditi Swami won the team gold. In the last 10 years, India have won 10 medals at World Championships, including a mixed team silver, apart from 13 medals in Asian Games.

“When we talk about compound archery, I would term it as 30 percent technical, 30 percent skill and the rest being mental ability. Recurve, I term as 70 percent skill and 30 percent mental ability. It takes a young archer one or two years to achieve proficiency in compound while it would take 4-5 years to do the same in recurve. That’s the reason why we now have young world champions. This mixed team event will give a chance for us to show that we can win an Olympic medal too,” says Verma.

Dream on

Recent months had seen archers like 2023 World Cup gold medallist Prathamesh Jawkar shifting to recurve in the hope of making it to the Olympic team, but Sanjeeva now predicts a reverse trend.

“With this one Olympic mixed event, I see the compound share among young archers to be slightly more than recurve. There were times when governments would refuse compound teams tours in Olympic years. I see that trend changing too. In the last three years, out of 248 international medals won in different age categories, more than 60 percent have come in compound for India and I have no doubt India’s first Olympic medal in archery will come from this discipline,” says Sanjeeva.

1st Indian Archery Compound team which participated at the 43 rd World Archery Championship at Madrid Spain in 2005 (Debut of Compound archery in World Championship) (Credit: Special Arrangement)

The last two years have seen the Indian mixed team being ranked second in the world behind the USA. Last year, the team of Verma and Jyothi won the gold at the Shanghai World Cup Stage 1 while the team of Priyansh and Jyothi won the silver at the Yecheon World Cup.

Sanjeeva also sees another advantage for India in mixed team events. “The less stress on muscles and body in compound also means that an archer can compete well into his 40s. Abhishek and Jyoti have won medals in world championships and world cups at the age of 35 and 28 respectively, and they can continue for another five or 10 years.”

As for Verma, who won the men’s team bronze at the USA World Cup on Wednesday along with Rishabh Yadav and Deotale, Indian archers are on their way to become a consistent powerhouse like Korea in recurve archery.

“Korean archers, apart from those from the USA and Colombia, respect Indian compound archers and the Korean Archery Federation has invited me and Jyothi to train with them in the coming months. It’s still a long way to LA but each one of us now has an Olympic dream to sleep with,” says Verma.