Dhiraj Bommadevara, Deepika Kumari win national titles in recurve archery

Paris 2024 Olympians Deepika Kumari and Dhiraj Bommadevara won the men’s and the women’s recurve competitions, respectively, at the National Archery Championships 2024 in Jamshedpur on Friday.

Four-time Olympian Deepika got the better of her fellow Paris 2024 Olympian Ankita Bhakat with a 6-2 scoreline in the women’s recurve archery final. Earlier, the 30-year-old Indian archer had defeated Simranjeet Kaur 6-4 in the semi-finals.

Deepika, a former world No. 1, also clinched the mixed team gold medal alongside her husband Atanu Das. Representing the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), the duo defeated Punjab 6-2 in the final.

Both Deepika and Atanu have already started preparing for the LA 2028 Olympics and have roped in Rahul Banerjee, a former Commonwealth Games champion, as their new coach.

In the men’s recurve final, Dhiraj Bommadevara found tough competition from Divyansh Chaudhary. The match was level at 2-2 before Dhiraj pulled away to claim a 6-2 victory. Dhiraj had earlier defeated Chingakham Achanba Singh 7-1 in the semi-finals.

While the individual recurve finals were held on Friday, the individual compound finals happened on Thursday.

Parneet Kaur dominated the women’s compound archery at the championships, clinching two gold and one bronze. The 19-year-old archer, who boasts medals at the world championships and the Asian Games, defeated Srishti Singh 146-142.

She won the mixed doubles gold with her Punjab teammate Uday Kamboj as the duo beat Maharashtra 158-156 for the title. Parneet was also part of the three-member women’s team that won bronze by defeating Railways 228-226.

Meanwhile, veteran Indian compound archer Abhishek Verma, a two-time Asian Games team gold medallist, clinched the individual title in his category with a 147-145 win over Uday Kamboj.

India’s National Archery Championships 2024 winners

Compound archery

• Men's Individual: Abhishek Verma (gold), Uday Kamboj (silver); Aman Saini (bronze)
• Women's Individual: Parneet Kaur (gold), Srishti Singh (silver), Jasveer Kaur (bronze)
• Men's team: Maharashtra (gold), Services Sports Control Board (silver), Haryana (bronze)
• Women team: Maharashtra (gold), Rajasthan (silver), Punjab (bronze)
• Mixed team: Punjab (gold), Maharashtra (silver), Rajasthan (bronze)

Recurve archery

• Men's individual: Dhiraj Bommadevara (gold), Divyansh Chaudhary (silver), Atul Verma (bronze)
• Women's individual: Deepika Kumari (gold), Ankita Bhakat (silver), Simranjeet Kaur (bronze)
• Men's team: Railways (gold), Haryana (silver); Services Sports Control Board (bronze)
• Women's team: Jharkhand (gold), Madhya Pradesh (silver), Maharashtra (bronze)
• Mixed team: Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (gold), Punjab (silver), Madhya Pradesh (bronze)