MUMBAI: India's 17-year-old Aditi Gopichand Swami from Maharashtra has achieved the rare distinction of becoming the youngest-ever world champion in archery thereby making the country proud of the fete. This is the first time that India recorded their best-ever finish in the games with four medals, three gold and one bronze at Berlin. 

Aditi stunned everyone with her second gold medal at the Championships, having already won gold in the women’s compound team event on Friday with compatriots Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur, also a first for India. 

Much credit also goes to Ojas Deotale who also became the world champion when he bagged the compound men's title with a sheer perfect score of 150, as the calm and composed Nagpur boy defeated Lukasz Przybylski of Poland by one point in a thrilling finish en route to the men's title.

Aditi hails from Maharashtra's Satara and is the daughter of a Math teacher in a government school with her mother also being a government employee, her story is one of utmost commitment and strong determination to excel in a sport for which she barely had any family background or proper facilities and infrastructure support. 

She started at 10 when she joined an archery academy in 2016, where the sport did not have too many takers, and her practices were in a sugarcane-field academy run by her coach Pravin Sawant and did not even have her own bow or arrows.

At over two to three lakh rupees for the entire kit, the cost was not a cheap proposition for her father, however noticing that she was extremely good at her game, and encouraged by Sawant her teacher father decided to buy her the equipment even if meant was to borrow money and take loans.

However much to their dismay Covid arrived and professional training had to be stopped, but this did not dissuade Aditi and her father set up a small practice field in the vicinity of her house. He is very proud to say that since she took to the sport, she has never missed a day of practice. 

And practice made her perfect, perfect enough to clinch the world title.