Indian Archery Team Wins Gold and Secures Historic Olympic Quota at Asian Games

Sahil Jadhav and Chikitha Taniparthi won the mixed team compound archery gold medal at the Asian Games after a dramatic shoot-off victory against South Korea.

The Final Shoot-Off

India and South Korea were tied at 157-157 at the end of regulation ends. In the tense shoot-off, Chikitha Taniparthi opened with a 10 for India, which was matched by South Korea's Jungyoon Park. Jadhav then stepped up and delivered his shot before South Korea's Yonghee Choi landed a nine-ring hit, giving India a 20-19 shoot-off win. This victory brought India its second compound archery gold of the day, following which Jadhav also combined with Kushal Dalal and Ganesh Mani Ratnam Thirumuru to secure a team gold.

Family and Coach Backing

Jadhav's journey to the gold medal involved severe financial hurdles. At 19, he started late in the sport at a summer camp in Wai before switching from recurve to compound under coach Pravin Sawant. When the Covid-19 pandemic caused Jadhav's father to lose his job, his mother, a teacher, sold her jewellery to purchase a compound bow. His coach Sawant once worked hospital night shifts as an orthopaedic ward boy and traveled 45 kilometres to practise, eventually becoming a police constable while building the Drushti Archery Academy in Satara.

Context

Archery at the Asian Games features both individual and team events, with compound archery testing extreme precision under pressure through tight shoot-offs. This particular win also secured India's first-ever Olympic quota in archery for the Los Angeles 2028 Games, where the mixed team event will make its official Olympic debut. Satara has increasingly become a notable nursery for Indian archery talent, producing world champions who transition successfully to national training centres like the one in Kolkata.