"I should leave archery" - From contemplating quitting the sport to securing an Olympic berth, Dhiraj Bommadevara opens up on his resilient journey

Following his disastrous show in the men’s recurve individual event at the 2023 Asian Games, Dhiraj Bommadevara contemplated quitting archery for a brief moment. That wasn’t because he botched two shots off the target in the quarter-final of the men’s recurve individual event, where he eventually lost in the shootouts to Kazakhstan’s Ilfat Abdullin.

It was the backlash that Dhiraj received on social media platforms after the game bogged him down. He explained that it wasn’t intentional. But it was a moment of sheer brain fade when his middle finger released the arrow instead of the ideal method of three fingers, where the index one is held above the arrow.

The technical term for such type of pressure in the archery lexicons is known as pinching, where the back muscles of the fingers generate the pressure and one of the fingers accidentally releases the arrow either from the knock or the endpoint of the bow.

The 23-year-old was given the moniker of ‘choker. Dhiraj says the unannounced decision to quit the sport was an emotional one, and thankfully, it never saw progress because of the intervention of experienced teammates Atanu Das, Tushar Shelke, and sports psychologist Mumta.

“The first reaction was obviously very bad. I mean, at first, I thought that I didn't do it intentionally. Then the second reaction was that I should leave archery. I mean, it was very negative,” a deflated Dhiraj told Sportskeeda in an exclusive interview after reading some Instagram comments on his performance in the individual event.

“I talked to Atanu Bhaiya and Tushar Bhaiya. And the only hope for me that day was that we had an event two days later,” the youngster added.

Dhiraj was dispirited but kept all the jittery aside to shift his focus at the men’s team recurve event. The team eventually won the silver medal after losing to South Korea in the final.

“Sometimes, no matter who is bad, the other two have to back up. And immediately, whoever is bad, they have to support them. They have to analyze and understand. No matter who is bad, they have to understand that they are right. No matter what happens in a team, they are like, what is he saying to me? They are like that,” the Asian Games medalist said.

The Asian Games setback certainly overshadowed his bronze medal at the Archery World Cup Stage I in Antalya just six months ago. The Andhra Pradesh lad was in search of restoring his morale and that’s when the Asian Continental Qualification Tournament served as a platform.

Dhiraj Bommadevara confirmed India’s first quota in archery for the Paris Olympics without dropping a set until the final. Despite a commanding lead of 5-3 against Lin Zih-Siang of Chinese Taipei, the Indian archer threw away the momentum in the air and then lost the shootouts by 10-9 to settle for a silver.

While explaining behind that particular loss, Dhiraj admitted there was complacency after he made it to the final as both finalists secured the Olympic quota.

But Dhiraj’s principal aim was to win the semi-finals and he was drained both physically and mentally by the time of the final. He took that inconsequential match for the sake of practice. Though he has got the quota, he isn’t guaranteed a place on the flight to Paris for the fact that the quota is awarded to the NOC (National Olympic Committee) rather than an individual.

“Thinking about that, preparing for the Olympics and preparing for going to Olympics is very different,” the Vijaywada-born athlete put his words to explain why he cannot relax, adding further: “There is a lot of difference, right? In that, we will be able to take our individual quota. It will not be easy to take the quota.”

Dhiraj Bommadevara takes the national trials for the Olympics as a motivation for all the archers to intensify their game level a notch above.

“Given that there will be trials for everyone. Everyone will improve. Because the most important thing is that whoever comes with one quota stays first. So according to that, the competition will increase,” he said.

“And when we have a competition with each other, everyone's archery level in India will go up. And when the Indian archery level will goes up then we have chances to get a gold medal in Paris Olympics,” he added.

The focus moves on bagging a men’s team quota in the next five months, with the final qualifier event scheduled in June 2024. After a retrospection of the year 2023, where at one point he was on top of the world and then went in down in flames in the other, Dhiraj is poised for new upcoming challenges.

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Dhiraj Bommadevara’s journey of bagging an Olympic quota

Dhiraj Bommadevara’s father Shravan Kumar returned to Vijayawada in 2001 to start a school along with his wife Revathy Bommadevara. Just seven years after the school was started, the land owner sold the building to another party, which resulted in the school to shut.

Instead of restarting the school at another location, Shravan started to focus on his eight-year-old son Dhiraj, who showed interest in archery since he was five. The father started joining his son at the age-group tournaments. He learned things like how to make and repair the bow and tie the string to help his son with coaching in the initial stage.

Shravan soon became a national judge following his training in Kolkata in 2010. Interestingly, not many archers were aware of the father-son relationship between an aspiring archer and a national judge.

“I have been with the team since 2019. Even then, they didn't know. Then in 2020- 2021, I told this to Atanu bhaiya and Tarun bhaiya. They were like ‘oh he is your father’. ‘We don't know how many times sir comes to the tournament and does the judging,” Dhiraj revealed.

However, the income earned from the archery events wasn’t sufficient to support Dhiraj’s cause for the sport. His mother Revathy sold all the gold available at her disposal and kept her wedding necklace (mangalsutra) as collateral for loans to help Dhiraj procure equipment once he advanced to higher levels of competition.

Keeping aside the financial strain, the societal pressure was difficult to grasp. Dhiraj secured a 9.3 CGPA in his 10th standard and later opted for PCM (Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics) in the plus-two stage. Looking at the achievement, many of his relatives were excited to see him excel as an engineer but they were hit with disappointment went the Vijaywada boy announced to focus on sports.

Soon Shravan and Revathy were confronted by hard words because they backed their son in his pursuit of passion. ‘Only one son is there and you want to send him to the sports what is there (in sports)’. ‘Do you want to make him a ‘Pittala Dora’ (a bird hunter)? - mocking the choice of archery as a suitable career option. But neither the athlete nor his parents let these barbs against them hinder the former’s journey.

In 2017, Dhiraj admitted that he was in a do-or-die situation after his mother sold all her gold and was desperate to make it big as the financial resources were running out of his hand. But he failed to qualify despite finishing in the top three in the Youth Championship trials in Rohtak.

Just when his archery career was nearly jeopardized, a second chance knocked on the door when the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) hunted him through their talent programs.

“OGQ supported me and kept a camp for me from 2018 to 2020 under the Korean force. So that was a very big turning point in my life. With that support, I was relied upon at home. I used to get a little stipend, so I used to give a little money at home,” the 23-year-old mentioned.

He later joined the Army Sports Institute in Pune in 2019, which he believes is the best facility in the country for archers. Even when the world was brought to a standstill by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Dhiraj continued his practice in the army facility.

He wasn’t part of India’s Tokyo Olympics recurve archery contingent with the likes of Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Tarundeep Rai making the cut.

The next few months will be crucial for him to decide whether he wants to repeat a performance in Antalya or the one in Hangzhou. His father has only one wish, that if his son confirms his place in the Paris Olympics then he shouldn’t return empty-handed.