Nagpur: Amravati’s 17-year-old sensation Kumkum Mohod saved her best for the biggest stage. 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.“I love to take on strong opponents in podium matches. This brings out the best in me,” Kumkum had said ahead of the final. 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.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. Her father Anil makes cardboard boxes for sweet shops in Amravati town of Maharashtra. Money was a luxury the family was always short on. The bow with which she won World Cup gold in Shanghai earlier this season was bought second-hand. She used it for five years.Kumkum’s success story came with a lot of sacrifices. Her rise was no overnight fairytale. It was shaped by a father’s sacrifices, a mother’s encouragement, a coach’s persistence and a young athlete’s refusal to let limited means limit her ambitions.After her Asian Games double gold feat in Japan, Kumkum said she always dreams big. A trait inherited from her mother Rupali. The mother was the first to dream of an archery future for Kumkum. “My mother introduced me to archery,” Kumkum said on Saturday.Within six months of taking up the sports, Kumkum won silver at the sub-junior nationals — an early indication of the talent she possessed. 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. This increased our financial worries,” Anil told TOI.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. “The OGQ sponsorship Kumkum received during February trials eased our financial worries,” Anil said.Kumkum’s historic feat has sparked celebrations in Amravati as well as Maharashtra’s archery circles. “This is the golden day for archery,” said Maharashtra Archery Association (MAA) president Prashant Deshpande, who also hails from Amravati.MAA Secretary Pramod Chandurkar said thanks to her Asian Games exploits, Kumum has secured an Olympic quota for the country. “She is just 17 and focuses only on her game. She does not look at the scoreboard, nor is she bothered by her opponent’s stature,” Chandurkar said.
