India's bullseye at the World Archery Championships

Against the odds, India's archers broke through to claim three golds in Berlin. In an exclusive, the champions tell Mint how they did it

- Deepti Patwardhan

Just a little over twenty-four hours, that’s what it took a young Indian archery team to jettison decades of disappointment and heartbreak. From 1931—when the World Archery Championships was launched—till 2021, India had won eleven medals: nine silver, two bronze and no gold. And in two glorious days at the 2023 Berlin World Archery Championships, India bagged three gold medals, and a bronze.

Ojas Deotale wrapped up India’s campaign with a perfect score of 150 which saw him clinch the gold in the men’s individual compound archery event on Saturday. A few hours earlier, 17-year-old Aditi Gopichand Swami had made a stunningly quick leap from teenage prodigy to world champion. But what had opened the floodgates was the Indian women’s compound team, comprising Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur. Maintaining their lead from start to finish, the Indian trio defeated Mexico 235-229 in the final on Friday to win India’s first gold medal, in recurve or compound, at the World Championships.

“I have the medal with me but it still feels like a dream,” Vennam tells Lounge a few hours after the historic win. At the Championships, she knew the sting of disappointment better than most. The Indian had come into the 2023 Championships as a six-time medallist. In the previous edition, in 2021, she made it to three finals—women’s individual, mixed team and women’s team—and finished second best in each.