Year Ender 2025 Indian Archery: Sheetal Devi had a great performance, compound was strong but recurve players disappointed

Kolkata. Sheetal Devi, who was born without hands, took Indian archery to new heights in the year 2025 with a brilliant display of her skills, but the performance of recurve archers remains worrying before the Asian Games to be held next year. 18 year old Sheetal, resident of Kishtwar, Jammu, set a great example of her determination with her strong performance throughout the year. This 18-year-old bronze medalist of the Paralympic Games played in Paris in 2024 achieved an unprecedented achievement by becoming the world champion in para archery.

Sheetal won the gold medal in the women’s compound open event at the World Para Archery Championship held in Gwangju, South Korea. She defeated Paralympic champion Oznur Cure Girdi of Türkiye in the final. They also concluded their stellar campaign by winning a silver medal in the team event and a bronze medal in the mixed team event. Sheetal, born without arms due to a rare congenital disease called phocomelia, put in an inspiring performance by qualifying for her first international competition. Competing against over 60 capable archers at the National Selection Trials in Sonipat, Sheetal had finished third in the women’s compound ranking.

Another important development of this year was that after decades of waiting, compound archery finally got recognition in the Olympics in 2025. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the compound mixed team event will be added to the archery program at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. With the inclusion of this event, the total number of medal events in Olympic archery has increased to six. The recurve category already consists of five events. India has not yet won a medal in Olympic archery, but it has the strongest compound archery team in the world. In such a situation, this decision is very important for him.

Archers like Abhishek Verma, Jyoti Surekha Vennam, Rishabh Yadav can be expected to win medals in the next Olympic Games. India produced its best-ever performance at the continental level at the Asian Archery Championships held in Dhaka and topped the medal tally with 10 medals (six gold, three silver and one bronze). Ankita Bhakat won the gold medal in the women’s recurve individual event, while Dheeraj Bommadevara won the men’s recurve title. This was the first time that Indian players won gold medals in both the individual recurve events at the Asian Championships. The men’s recurve team also defeated Korea in a thrilling shoot-off, breaking their long-standing dominance. However, South Korea, considered the stronghold of archery, did not field its top players in this competition. Leaving aside the success in Dhaka, it has been a difficult year for Indian recurve archers in world level competitions. India could not win any medal in the World Championship, which also exposed the lack of consistency in the performance of the players. Ankita registered the biggest win of her career in Dhaka.

She defeated former world number one Deepika Kumari in the semi-finals of the women’s recurve. Due to this, the decline in Deepika’s game was also clearly visible. Four-time Olympian Deepika could win only one individual bronze medal in the World Cup circuit and was also deprived of a bronze medal in the Asian Championships. This year, teenage recurve archers Gatha Khadke (15) and Sharvari Shende (16) made their World Cup debut. In compound archery, Rishabh Yadav and Prathika left their mark in the World Championship and Asia Cup. Compound archery once again proved to be India’s most reliable event.

Jyoti created history by winning the bronze medal in the Archery World Cup Finals held in Nanjing. She became the first Indian female player to win a medal in this competition. None of India’s recurve archers had qualified for the season-ending World Cup finals. After many years of planning the Archery Premier League finally started in 2025. However, the league received limited popularity due to the absence of South Korea. Yet it featured a number of top international players, including world number one Brady Ellison, Mete Gazoz and Alejandra Valencia. This year there was a deadlock regarding coaching in archery which affected the preparation of the players. Despite the Asian Games approaching, the Archery Association of India has not been able to appoint a foreign head coach for both recurve and compound events.