Deepika Kumari Complete Bio & Career
Deepika Kumari is arguably one of the best Indian women archers who is presently ranked 5th but at a point was number 1 ranked archer in the world. She rose to prominence after she won two Gold medals in 2010 Commonwealth Games held in Delhi. She won in individual and team recurve event.
Her stint with archery started when she was a kid and practised archery by aiming for mangoes not with the arrows but with stones. Since she hailed from an underprivileged background, her parents couldn’t afford her equipment and more often than not, she practised with self-made bamboo arrows and bows.
Her dreams of becoming an archer got wings after an archery Institute was set up at Kharsawan in Jharkhand by then chief minister’s wife, Meera Munda in 2005. The very next year, she enrolled at the Tata Archery Institute in Jamshedpur. She used to get a stipend of 500 along with proper equipment and uniform. She returned home after a gap of three years after having won the gold medal at the Cadet WorldChampionship in the year 2009.
The next year she won two gold medals at the Commonwealth games and also qualified for the 2012 London Olympics. Just before the Olympics, she emerged the winner at the World Cup held in Turkey and became a medal prospect for India at the Olympics but unfortunately, she came back empty hands.
She kept on performing at the international levels and won as many as five silver medals including World Cup and World Championships. She qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics as well and as the last time, expectations were high from her but again at the big stage she failed to deliver. She though qualified till the round of 16 at the 2016 Olympics.
With age on her side and the way she has performed at the stages other than Olympics, hopefully, she will bring home an Olympic medal at the 2020 Olympics which is due to held in Tokyo, Japan.