Archery World Championships: Indian Women's Team Win Bronze

The Indian women's archery compound team – comprising of  Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Muskan Kirarand Raj Kaur - won bronze after defeating Turkey at the Archery World Championships in Netherlands on Saturday. The power packed youngsters teamed up to beat the Turkish team of Yesim Bostan, Gizem Elmaagacli and Ipek Tomruk by a score of 229-226.

With this win India collected its second medal at this year's World Championships, previously the men's recurve team (of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav) had made Gold Medal Final on Thursday, and are assured of a medal.

The men's recurve team final is to be held on June 16. They have also secured an Olympic team quota. Compound archery, however, is not an Olympic event, and thus has no quotas distributed for the same.

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The Indian women's compound team is currently ranked third in the world.

This is the second time that India has clinched a medal in this event at the Worlds. They had won silver in the last edition in Mexico City after losing to Colombia in the final.

Vennam is also competing to win bronze in the women's individual compound event where she'll face off Turkey's Yesim Bostan. The 22-year-old champ from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, is one of India’s best compound archers. Last year, Indian women’s compound team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Trisha Deb, P Lily Chanu, Muskan Kirar, Divya Dhayal and Madhumita, scripted history at Berlin where they defeated Chinese Taipei to reach the final. The team made a quick jump from the fifth position all the way to the top in July same year.

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How archery happened

Jyothi is a Computer Science graduate, currently pursuing an MBA and balancing professional archery alongside her academics.

Swimming was her first love. At four, Jyothi entered the Limca Book of Records when she crossed the Krishna River three times, a distance of 5 km in three hours, 20 minutes and six seconds. Since then she has won numerous national and international competitions, and has a 70-medal haul to her credit. While winning a gold medal in Olympics is the ultimate dream at this point, Jyothi indulged in archery after her parents pushed her into it.

Surekha, a discovery of former India coach Ch. Lenin, first came into the spotlight at the age of 13 when she won five medals, including the Olympic round gold in the Mexican Grand Prix held in Mexico. She also grabbed three silvers and a bronze in the FITA round in the same tour. In 2011, she bagged two bronze medals at the 2011 Asian Archery Championship.

Career highlights: 

• Surekha was the youngest ever to win the prestigious Arjuna award from South India for her excellence in the field of archery in 2017.
• In April, she won the bronze medal at the Archery World Cup in Shanghai alongside Abhishek Verma.
• At the Berlin World Cup, she won three silver medals in the women’s team event and bronze in the mixed team. With this win, she ensured her entry into the World Cup Finals, which are scheduled to take place in September in Samsun, Turkey.
• Jyothi has represented India in many international events and now boasts of 27 medals, which include seven gold, and six silver medals.

She was in the news last year for declaring an indefinite hunger strike in her hometown Vijayawada. As per reports, the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh’s delayed a payment of Rs 1 crore cash prize promised to her by the state government.

Feature Picture Credit: Sportskeeda

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