Shot put to archery, Bhajan Kaur’s journey

New Delhi: When Deepika Kumari first represented India in the 2012 Olympics, Bhajan Kaur, the archer from Haryana, was only seven years old. Fast forward to Paris 2024, the duo and Ankita Bhakat are part of India’s women’s archery team in the Olympics. Bhajan had already won the individual quota by clinching gold at the final world qualifying tournament in Antalya before World Cup stage three. Days later the women’s team also gained the quota based on the updated World Archery rankings.

India topped the rankings among the non-qualified nations in both men’s and women’s sections to seal their team quotas. With that India has an opportunity to compete for all five medal events in Paris — men’s and women’s teams, individual and mixed categories. “It was a great feeling when I won the individual quota because we had none for women before that,” Kaur told this daily.

“Winning the gold medal in the world qualifier also gave us the confidence that we could do better in the World Cup that followed and clinched the team’s quota. We were all together when we received the news that we had earned the team quota. It took us some time and we had to put in some fight, but I am happy,” the 18-year-old added.

Coming from an agricultural family, recurve archery was never a first-choice sport for Kaur; it was shot put. “I used to practice for the shot put. One of those days my teacher, Parminder sir, said why don’t you give archery a chance. We didn’t have any girl archers in the under-14 level and I decided to give it a go.

One of the senior players saw me practice and reassured me that I was doing well. Then we went from Ellenabad to Hisar. When we went to the district place, Mehra sir told me I could go places with my archery. Then I took it seriously.