Product Code Database
Deepika Kumari (born 13 June 1994) is an Indian professional Archery who competes in the Recurve bow category. A four-time Olympic Games and two-time World Archery Championships silver medallist, Deepika is one of the most decorated Indian archer and the first Indian archer to rise to the top of the world rankings, reaching the World No. 1 ranking in 2012. Known for her precision and consistency, Deepika has won numerous medals at international tournaments, including World Cup, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and Asian Championships. She has been honored with several national awards, including the Arjuna Award in 2012 and the Padma Shri in 2016, for her contribution to Indian sports.
As a child, she practised aiming for mangoes with stones. "Deepika Kumari: From mangoes to CWG gold", The Siasat Daily, 10 October 2010. Retrieved 10 October 2010. During her early days it was difficult for her parents to financially support Deepika's dream, often compromising on the family budget to buy her new equipment for her training; as a result, Deepika practised archery using homemade bamboo bows and arrows. Deepika's cousin Vidya Kumari, then an archer residing at Tata Archery Academy, helped her develop her talent.
She won the 11th Youth World Archery Championship held in Ogden, Utah, United States in 2009, at the age of fifteen. She also won a gold medal in the same competition in the women's team recurve event, alongside Dola Banerjee and Bombayala Devi.
At the Delhi Commonwealth games 2010, Deepika won two gold medals, one in the individual event and the other in the women's team recurve event. For this, she was honoured with the Outstanding Performance at CWG (Female) Award at the 2010 Sahara Sports Awards ceremony.
Later at the Asian Games of 2010, held in Guangzhou, China, Deepika missed out on a medal after she lost to Kwon Un-Sil of North Korea in the bronze-medal play-off of the women's individual archery event. But as a part of the Indian archery recurve team, along with Rimil Buriuly and Dola Banerjee, Deepika edged out Chinese Taipei 218–217 in the bronze play-off to ensure a podium finish at the Aoti Archery Range.
In May 2012, Deepika Kumari won her first World Cup individual stage recurve gold medal at Antalya, Turkey. She beat Korea's Lee Sung-Jin by six set points to four in the final. Later in 2012, she would go on to become world no. 1 in Women's Recurve Archery. In London Olympics 2012, Deepika Kumari lost against Amy Oliver of Great Britain in the opening round, attributing a relatively poor performance to fever and high winds.
On 22 July 2013, she won the gold medal in Archery World Cup stage 3 held at Medellin, Colombia where India finished fourth. On 22 September 2013, Deepika lost 4–6 to Yun Ok-Hee of South Korea & settled for silver medal in 2013 FITA Archery World Cup. This was her 3rd Silver medal in as many appearances in the World Cup Final.
In 2014, Deepika was featured by Forbes (India) as one of their '30 under 30'. However, she failed to make the Indian team for 2014 after finishing outside the top 4 at the national qualifications.
In 2015, Deepika's first medal came at the second stage of the World Cup, where she won a bronze in the individual event. At the World Championships in Copenhagen, she won a team silver along with Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly, after narrowly losing out on a gold in a match against Russia which they conceded 4–5 in a shoot-off. In the latter half of this year, she won the silver medal in the World Cup final. In November 2015, she won a bronze medal in the Asian Championships with Jayanta Talukdar in the Recurve Mixed Team event.
In April 2016, at the first stage of the World Cup in Shanghai, Deepika equaled the Ki Bo-bae's world record of (686/720) in the women's recurve event.
Deepika Kumari was the part of the team that qualified for 2016 Rio Olympics. The Indian women's recursive team, consisting of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi, finished 7th in the ranking round. The team won their match against Colombia in the round of 16 before losing the quarterfinal match against Russia.
In the women's Individual archery, Deepika Kumari produced a stellar performance in the round of 64 against Kristine Esebua of Georgia. Deepika won this round with a score of 6–4. In the next round, Deepika had a much-easier outing against Guendalina Sartori of Italy. Deepika started badly and lost the first round but won the next three to ease through 6–2 in the end. However, in the round of 16, Deepika went down to Chinese Taipei's Tan Ya-ting with a score of 0 against 6.
In November 2019, Deepika Kumari secured an Olympic quota at the Continental Qualification Tournament being held on the sidelines of the 21st Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok. Deepika Kumari India won 3 gold medals in the Archery's World Cup Stage 3 tournament in Paris 2021. She thus recorded the 13th triple gold and became the 11th archer to achieve the feat – in the 15-year history of the Hyundai Archery World Cup.
This documentary was also screened for Maneka Gandhi, the Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development, with an aim to increase awareness about women in sports in India.
| 2012 | Arjuna Award | |
| 2014 | FICCI Sportsperson of the Year Award | |
| 2016 | Padma Shri | |
| 2017 | Young Achievers Award | Felicitated by Vogue |
| World Archery tournaments | |||||||||||||
| Olympic Games | 1R | 3R | QF | QF | 0/4 | ||||||||
| World Championships | 3R | 3R | 3R | 2R | 3R | 0/5 | |||||||
| World Cup | |||||||||||||
| Stage 1 | 3R | QF | 2nd | 3R | QF | QF | 4R | W | 2nd | 3/9 | |||
| Stage 2 | QF | 3R | W | 2R | 3R | 3rd | 4th | QF | 4th | 2/8 | |||
| Stage 3 | 3R | 2nd | QF | 4R | 4R | W | 4R | W | 4R | 3/9 | |||
| Stage 4 | 2nd | 3rd | QF | 3rd | QF | 3rd | 4R | 3/7 | |||||
| World Cup Final | QF | 2nd | 2nd | 2nd | DNQ | 2nd | DNQ | DNQ | 3rd | DNQ | 4th | 2nd | 6/8 |
|
|
