Deepika Kumari
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Archery is not a sport that is given much attention, but Deepika Kumari has excelled despite the odds. The daughter of a nurse and a rickshaw driver, Deepika used sticks, stones and bamboo shoots to practice archery, a sport she wanted to pursue but could not afford.
Eventually, Deepika joined a training academy in Jamshedpur that helped hone her talent; that would pay off, and she won the junior title 2006 Archery World Cup in Mexico after beginning her training at only 15 years of age.
She has excelled in the recurve in both team and individual events, and in 2009’s Youth World Archery championships, took the gold medal in both alongside teammates Dola Banerjee and Bombayla Devi, with the latter still her teammate.
Deepika won two gold medals, one each at the same two events, at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi the following year.
In 2012, following her individual World Cup gold in Turkey, Deepika Kumari became the world’s top-ranked female archer for a time, and won a series of gold medals in the year that followed despite a lackluster performance at the London 2012 Olympics.
Most recently, she had a 2nd place World Cup finish at the 2015 Archery World Cup in Copenhagen, and closed out the year with a bronze medal at the Asian Archery Championships, winning the mixed recurve team event.
Her story is one of guts, grit and inspiration, and now she will head to Rio hoping for her first Olympic medal.
