Even before her exploits in 2023, Jyothi Surekha Vennam was one of the India's leading compound archers with slew of medals at the World Championships, World Cup and Asian Games.
But this was the year she firmly established her credentials as India's most consistent and best in a sport that is often sidelined as a step-sibling to the Olympic discipline of recurve archery. Even casual followers of compound archery must have heard her name for a while now. She's regularly been among the medals in international events - a total of 8 now at the World Championships, the most by an Indian, along with 16 at the World Cups.
But none of them were gold, till the Paris last October in the mixed team event. And before 2023, none of them were individual gold medals either.
In April this year, she finally ended that drought - winning her first individual gold medal at a World Archery event in what was her 20th attempt, at the first World Cup of the season in Antalya. It was an almost perfect week. Not only did she top qualification with a superb 713, matching the then world record score, she also beat world number one Ella Gibson and Sara Lopez, nicknamed the 'Compound Archery Queen' for her record-breaking success.
It was a pivotal moment - fulfilling a long-held dream and proving her promise.
"Antalya was huge for me. There have been a few times when I got into the quarterfinals but then lost and I always thought, 'maybe next time I'll win.' I knew that I was on the way to more success and that the win was definitely coming," she said after.
She added two more mixed team gold medals at the World Cup stages and two more in women's team including the big one - India's first ever gold medal at the World Archery Championships.
The World Championship, in Berlin in August, turned out to be a plot twist. This was primed to be her crowning glory. She had won bronze in 2019, upgraded that to silver in 2021 and was in great touch in 2023. The official website of World Archery touted her to be the India's first senior archery world champion. Then, top seed Lopez was eliminated before the quarterfinals and Jyothi was the highest, most experienced archer left.
What happened next was great news for Indian archery but not so much for Jyothi. She was beaten in the semifinals by 17-year-old Indian debutant Aditi Swami, who went on to become the world champion.
Jyothi bounced back immediately to win another Worlds bronze to go with her team gold, but the dream of becoming the solo world champion was unfulfilled.
A couple of months later, Jyothi faced the same situation again - a semifinal against Aditi Swami in a major event. This was at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, where the spotlight was sharp on them, both as favourites and also a sporting event that is closely watched by most of India. The pressure was firmly on her this time, along with a far larger live audience than that in Berlin. How did Jyothi respond?
A near perfect 149/150 to reach the final. The match against Aditi was as close and dramatic as they come.
The two were level after eight perfect 10s. On the ninth, Jyoti shot 9 and Aditi shot 10 to move ahead. She held the lead for three more shots, before an inopportune 7 on her third-last arrow. Jyothi now had an opening to come back and she did with straight 10s to take the lead and move into final.
The ever-smiling, energetic Aditi later said that it was no big deal losing because Jyothi didi was her role model and it was an Indian win at the end of the day.
Oh, Jyothi also won the gold medal in women's and mixed team at the Asian Games. But that was almost a guarantee given how good India's compound archers have been this season. In 2023, as in the two matches with a compatriot a decade younger than her, Jyothi encapsulated the universal storyline of sport, and life.
Try hard. Reach a milestone. Climb higher. Fall. Get up, dust yourself and try again. Go for the win. Get the gold.
Amid this on-field success, Jyothi's off-court attitude deserves a mention. Particularly, her forthright appeal for her sport to be recognised in her country.
Compound archery is not an Olympic discipline and is therefore often ignored by audiences and investors unless there is a multi-sport event like the Asian Games. Jyothi wished to change that and used her voice to do so.
In an interview with ESPN India after the World Championships, the normally composed Jyothi made an impassioned appeal for support.
"Just because compound archery is not included in the Olympics, we don't receive any support. Olympic athletes receive a lot of support be it from private organization or any other, but we don't'," Jyothi said. "I can't question them but I can only request them to extend support for non-Olympic athletes too. What is our fault if our event is not in the Olympics? Only Olympics is not the question, right? I know it is a big event, but we are also competing in other events, we are also winning medals at World Championship and Asian Games and Asian Championship."
It struck a chord, especially as India went on to sweep the compound archery gold medals at the Asian Games, the first non-Korean nation to top the archery medal table in 45 years. And Jyothi was involved in three of those five gold medals.
She may not be the reigning world champion now, but she is someone who will always be counted among the favourites because she has years of hard work to show for it.
For her consistency and for constantly raising the bar for Indian compound archery, Jyothi Surekha Vennam is ESPN India's Female Athlete of the Year.