Determined women archers hope to win next Olympic medal
Winner of 63 national medals, Ridhi Phor representing Kurukshetra University of Haryana, participated in the Khelo India University Games archery contest, being held here in Lucknow, on her 19th birthday.
Having started at age 8, shooting arrows and picking up skills from her father, a former weightlifter, she started contesting professionally in 2014.
From childhood to now, archery has turned into a passion and she aims for an Olympic medal. She has already won 10 international and 60 national medals in her career so far. At last year’s Khelo India tournaments, Ridhi won gold in recurve archery.
“Mental toughness is the most important in archery. We cannot afford to be distracted by nerves or anxiety in the moment before we release the arrow,” said Phor.
Against all odds
Twenty-year-old Aditi Jaiswal is one of the young female archers in the country known for having braved adverse situations to keep their ambition alive.
First it was Covid-19 and then Cyclone Amphan.
In the process, the Calcutta University lass’s father lost his scrap dealership shop in the floods. But Jaiswal made it to the India teams for Archery World Cup, World Championships, as well as the Asian Games. According to Aditi Jaiswal , it took a while of persevering before her parents agreed to her decision to pursue archery as her passion.
Training and striving under the able Rahul Banerjee, former Commonwealth archery gold medallist, she too hopes to represent her country in the Olympics someday.
Besides her many laurels in the sport, Aditi Jaiswal is also known to have once beaten Olympic archer Deepika Kumari, who is currently ranked second in the world.