Mentally stronger, Deepika Kumari is in attack mode to win first medal

Focused and determined, Deepika Kumari gears up for her 1/8 match of the recurve women’s individual competition at Paris 2024 Olympics – a position she has been before in the past.

Kumari has made it into the last 16 of Rio 2016 while she went one round better at Tokyo 2020 before exiting.

At Paris, the 23rd seede overcame a fighting Reena Parnat in a shoot-off to win her first individual 6-5, which included a perfect 30 in the fifth set. She then defeated Quinty Roeffen 6-2 with her scores reading 29, 27, 25 and 29 in the second round.

Kumari is now set to face Germany’s Michelle Kroppen, the 2022 European Champion and reigning team World Champion, who along with Florian Unruh won the mixed team silver yesterday, only losing to Korea.

But what’s different this time?

She is a mother of 19-month-old daughter, Vedika, and the hunger to win that elusive Olympic medal is even more. She has endured a strenuous journey – both mentally and physically – on her comeback into the Indian team in 2024. There’s only one goal in her mind – the Olympic medal.  

However, the most difficult part for her is to keep away the distraction of missing her daughter as she prepared and now competed at the Games. This is the longest time that Kumari has been away from her daughter – over two months starting with pre-Olympic camps.

“I miss Vedika so much – this is the most difficult part,” says India’s top archer. “She is growing too fast, and I am not giving her 100% time – I can’t express in words how I feel without her.”

The longing to see or hold her child is obvious for a mother.

For almost a decade and a half, Kumari has carried the hopes of billions of fans as they await India’s first archery medal at the Olympics. And she succumbed to it in the previous occasions.

At Invalides, it’s been a challenging start for India as well with both the men’s and women’s team’s early exit. For the women comprising Kumari and Olympic debutants Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat, it was a shocking early exit after seeding fourth.

A lot of negatives comments and trolling also followed on social media in the aftermath.

But Kumari remains unmoved and was focused on the job at hand.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she says. “I am trying to stay calm and perform in attack mode till the last arrow.”

“I’m going to focus only on myself and my performance,” adds the 30-year-old, as she competes in her fourth Olympics in Paris.

Kumari seems stronger, psychologically, having overcome the hard time she had after becoming a mother.

 First with preparing her body physically – to be stronger and fitter – and then mentally – to keep away all doubts and distractions of being away from her daughter – and get ready for bigger challenges.

“I returned after 21 days of my delivery,” she explains. It was my husband Atanu (former archer Das) and my in-laws who supported me all this while.”

“I felt I will become mad if I sit at home, I was so stubborn to be back in training.”

The return wasn’t easy, however, as she had to work on many aspects – right from her body which was very weak.

“My body was like a new-born baby – there was no strength in my body.”

“It was tough but I kept on telling myself that ‘gear up Deepika as you don’t have any option than to train’.”

She also underwent training under the legendary Korean coach Kim Hyung-Tak as she prepared her comeback to the team.

“It was not just about the skills, but his guidance played a significant part in bringing clarity to shooting,” explains Kumari.

The hard work paid off and she won her first medal in two years – a silver in the first stage of the Hyundai World Cup in Shanghai last April.

There were many disappointments too on her way to Invalides.

But she will be proud to have given the game all ever since she started playing the sport, as a 13-year-old girl from a village in northern India, to her fourth Games.

And what if Kumari’s – and India’s – first Olympic medal came this Saturday?