The 19-year-old Kirti converted that second chance into a history-making recurve archery gold medal at the Asian Games on Friday. The Indian troika of Kirti, Kumkum Mohod and Ankita Bhakat brought down an archery Goliath in the gold medal match. They defeated the South Korean women’s team that rarely ever gets introduced to defeat.

It was India’s first ever gold at the Asian Games with the complex recurve bow. The Indian team was deadlocked at 2-2 after the second set, before they won the fourth and tied the fifth to win the title 5-2 at the Okazaki Central Park Multipurpose Square in Japan.

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Gold medallist India’s Kumkum Anil Mohod, Ankita Bhakat and Kirti celebrate on the podium during the victory ceremony (REUTERS Photo)

The Koreans had in their midst, Tokyo Olympics team gold medallist and reigning world champion Kang Chae-young, Oh Ye-jin and Lee Yunji. The South Korean women are a juggernaut in the women’s archery team event in particular. At the Paris 2024 Olympics, they won their 10th consecutive women’s team gold at the Olympics, a record that stretches back to Seoul 1988.

A girl who was once too skinny to even lift a bow, had pulled down a colossus.

Kirti and her father explain the story about her being too skinny.

“Kirti was very thin and would only have a single glass of milk during the whole day. She would not like to eat and sometimes we were worried. When she was rejected by the coaches initially due to her thin body, she was not dejected. She understood it and later she was selected. Archery took her to the academy in Jharkhand and now see our girl has won the Asian Games gold so far away in Japan,” said father Vijay while speaking with .

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Kirti meanwhile, added: “Food wasn’t a problem as per normal standards. But I used to eat less than what a sportswoman requires. I was always lean, so I had to change my diet.

“People might’ve talked about me being lean but my parents never told me of it. But yes, people would question why my parents were sending a girl so far away to train in Jharkhand and wasting money on a girl.”

Even after she got into the sport at the academy, there was a lot of work that had to be done to get her into competition shape and make up for the initial deficit.

“Initially I had rejected Kirti due to her thin body frame,” coach Udham Singh had told this daily earlier. “But some years later, when we visited the village again, we selected her. We had to work a lot on her strength and to make her body in alignment with the bow motion. We also worked on her bow arm strength as well as stability with dry practice with the bow initially. When Kirti was selected for the SAI centre in Hazaribagh, where I was the coach, the team worked with nutritionists to help her gain shoulder muscle power,” he added.

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Kirti said: “I worked a lot on technique of shoulder positioning. My shoulder was very weak. I always watched videos of Dhiraj (Bommadevara( bhaiyya. We don’t have the same technique, but I am a fan of his technique of arrow release and shoulder stability.

“I have worked on my shooting form. I wasn’t consistent in my release in the first pull.”

On Friday, it was not just the mighty Koreans that the Indians were grappling with, The wind grew treacherous in the morning at the archery ranges. But nothing would come in the way of the history-makers.