Deepika Kumari
First Indian archer to reach world No. 1 ranking.
Deepika Kumari (born 13 June 1994) is an Indian recurve archer. She has competed in four Olympic Games and won silver medals at two World Championships, making her one of India's most accomplished recurve archers. In 2012, she became the first Indian archer to reach the world number one ranking. For her achievements, she received the Arjuna Award in 2012 and the Padma Shri in 2016.
Kumari was born in Ranchi, then in Bihar (now Jharkhand), to Shiv Charan Prajapati, an auto-rickshaw driver, and Geeta, a nurse at Ranchi Medical College. She grew up in Ratu Chatti village, about 15 km from Ranchi, in a Prajapati family. As a child, she practiced aiming at mangoes with stones. Her parents struggled to afford her training, often cutting the family budget to buy equipment, so she initially used homemade bamboo bows and arrows. Her cousin, Vidya Kumari, an archer at the Tata Archery Academy, helped nurture her talent.
Her first breakthrough came in 2005 when she joined the Arjun Archery Academy in Kharsawan, set up by Meera Munda, wife of Jharkhand's chief minister. Her professional career began in 2006 at the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur, where she trained with proper equipment and a uniform, receiving a stipend of ₹500. She returned home only once in her first three years there, after winning the Cadet World Championship title in November 2009. She has long been seen as India's best hope for a first Olympic medal in archery.
Kumari married fellow archer Atanu Das on 30 June 2020. Their daughter, Vedika, was born in December 2022.
She became the second Indian to win a World Cup title after Palton Hansda won the junior compound event in 2006. In 2009, at age 15, she won the 11th Youth World Archery Championship in Ogden, Utah, and also took gold in the women's team recurve event with Dola Banerjee and Bombayala Devi.
At the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, she won two gold medals—one in the individual event and one in the women's team recurve. She received the Outstanding Performance at CWG (Female) Award at the 2010 Sahara Sports Awards. Later that year at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, she lost the bronze medal match in the individual event to North Korea's Kwon Un Sil, but helped the Indian recurve team—alongside Rimil Buriuly and Dola Banerjee—beat Chinese Taipei 218–217 for bronze.
Quick Facts
- Nationality
- n
- Birth Date
- 13 June 1994
- Birth Place
- Ratu Chatti, Jharkhand, India
- Height
- 1.62 m
- Weight
- 56 kg
- Sport
- Archery
- Spouse
- Atanu Das · 30 June 2020
- Event
- Recurve
- Turned Pro
- 2006
- Highest Ranking
- 1 (2012)
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Deepika Kumari was born in Ranchi, Bihar (now Jharkhand) to Shiv Charan Prajapati, an auto-rickshaw driver, and Geeta, a nurse. She belongs to a Prajapati family. As a child, she practised aiming for mangoes with stones. Her parents often compromised on the family budget to buy her equipment, and she initially practised using homemade bamboo bows and arrows. Her cousin Vidya Kumari, then an archer at Tata Archery Academy, helped develop her talent.
Her first breakthrough came in 2005 when she entered the Arjun Archery Academy at Kharsawan, an institute set up by Meera Munda. Her professional archery journey began in 2006 when she joined the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur, where she started training with proper equipment and a uniform, receiving ₹500 as a stipend. She returned home once in her first three years there, only after winning the Cadet World Championship title in November 2009.
Deepika won the 11th Youth World Archery Championship in Ogden, Utah, United States in 2009 at age fifteen, also taking gold in the women's team recurve event alongside Dola Banerjee and Bombayala Devi. At the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, she won two gold medals (individual and women's team recurve). She later won a bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou as part of the Indian recurve team with Rimil Buriuly and Dola Banerjee.
Reader's Guide
Deepika Kumari's significance lies in her role as a pioneering figure in Indian archery. She became the first Indian archer to achieve the World No. 1 ranking in women's recurve archery in 2012, a milestone that elevated the profile of the sport in India. Her career includes multiple World Cup stage gold medals, including her first individual World Cup gold at Antalya, Turkey in May 2012, where she beat Korea's Lee Sung-Jin. She also won a team silver at the 2015 World Championships in Copenhagen alongside Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly. In 2021, she won three gold medals at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Paris, becoming the 11th archer in the 15-year history of the Hyundai Archery World Cup to achieve a triple gold. Despite setbacks at the Olympics—losing in the opening round at London 2012 and reaching the round of 16 at Rio 2016—she has remained a consistent force. Her achievements earned her the Arjuna Award in 2012 and the Padma Shri in 2016. A biographical documentary, 'Ladies First', released in 2017, highlighted her journey and was submitted for the Short Documentary category at the Academy Awards.
Did You Know?
- Deepika Kumari practiced archery as a child by aiming at mangoes with stones.
- She was the first Indian archer to reach World No. 1 ranking in 2012.
- A biographical documentary about her, 'Ladies First', was released in 2017 and submitted for the Academy Awards.
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