Archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bharat set record by winning titles at Asian Archery

Ankita shocked Korea’s Paris Olympic medallist Nam Suhyeon 7-3, while the 24-year-old Dhiraj defeated compatriot Rahul 6-2 in the finals to win gold

Hyderabad: Dhiraj Bommadevara, a product of Volga Archery Academy in Vijayawada, and Ankita Bharat set a new record of sorts by becoming the first-ever Indian male and female recurve archers to win individual titles in the Asian archery championship in Dhaka last weekend.

Ankita shocked Korea’s Paris Olympic medallist Nam Suhyeon 7-3, while the 24-year-old Dhiraj defeated compatriot Rahul 6-2 in the finals to win gold.

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“This gold should be a huge morale booster as I target the 2028Los Angeles Olympics medal. And, I am determined to bring home an Olympic medal in memory of my mentor Cherukuri Lenin,” Dhiraj informed ‘Telangana Today’.

“Beating the formidable Korean archers in the Asian championship was truly memorable,” he said.

The champion archer said he also owed his success to the coach at Volga Academy, Cherukuri Satyanarayana and that he would be working really hard to make it to the Indian team and also win medals in the Senior nationals to be held in Hyderabad next month.

The Vijayawada archer’s immediate goals also include doing well in the Asian Games selection trials in Delhi.

For the record, Dhiraj, who also won a silver in the team event (recurve) in the 2022 Asian Games, joined the Army in 2021 as Havaldar, after training at the Army Sports Institute in Pune for four years and is supported by Olympic Gold Quest.

Interestingly, Dhiraj in his maiden Olympics in Paris last year finished fourth with a score of 681, marking it as one of the best rankings by an Indian archer in the Olympic Games.

Dhiraj thanked Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Deputy CM Pavan Kalyan, and Minister Nara Lokesh for their “wonderful support”.