Kumkum Mohod won India’sfirst-ever individual recurve goldat the Asian Games Saturday
Nagpur: Amravati’s 17-year-old sensation Kumkum Mohod saved her best for the biggest stage. For a girl who started archery in 2018 with a wooden bow costing Rs3,000, bought with money given by her grandmother, it is a remarkable rise. “She is just 17 and focuses only on her game.
The bow with which she won World Cup gold in Shanghai earlier this season was bought second-hand. Within six months of taking up the sports, Kumkum won silver at the sub-junior nationals — an early indication of the talent she possessed.
This brings out the best in me,” Kumkum had said ahead of the final. After her Asian Games double gold feat in Japan, Kumkum said she always dreams big. “My mother introduced me to archery,” Kumkum said on Saturday. This increased our financial worries,” Anil told TOI. “The OGQ sponsorship Kumkum received during February trials eased our financial worries,” Anil said. MAA Secretary Pramod Chandurkar said thanks to her Asian Games exploits, Kumum has secured an Olympic quota for the country. She does not look at the scoreboard, nor is she bothered by her opponent’s stature,” Chandurkar said.
“I love to take on strong opponents in podium matches. She justified every word of it. In an astonishing Asiad debut, the young archer became the first Indian to win the Asian Games recurve individual gold. Her father Anil makes cardboard boxes for sweet shops in Amravati town of Maharashtra . Money was a luxury the family was always short on. She used it for five years. A trait inherited from her mother Rupali. The mother was the first to dream of an archery future for Kumkum. Kumkum’s rise in the domestic archery circuit also increased the Mohod family’s worries. “The income went down as I had to accompany Kumkum to various archery competitions. A scholarship Kumkum earned a few months prior to her gold in the Shanghai leg of World Cup in May this year, helped the family a lot.
A day after anchoring India to its first-ever women’s recurve team gold at the Asian Games , Kumkum won her second gold medal of the Asian Games on Saturday, beating South Korea’s Oh Yejin in a dramatic one-arrow shoot-off in the women’s recurve individual final.