Less than two months after she won the junior world title, 17-year-old Aditi Swami on Saturday became India's first senior world champion with her gold in the compound women's final at the World Archery Championships in Berlin on Saturday.
This was her second World Championship gold after she along with Parneet Kaur and Jyothi Surekha Vennam had won India's first ever World Archery Championships gold by winning the compound women's team final on Friday.
Aditi Swami is the NEW world champion! 🏆🇮🇳#WorldArchery pic.twitter.com/QkAavPmkwp
- World Archery (@worldarchery) August 5, 2023
The Satara teenager, who had won the Under-18 title in Youth Championships in Limerick in July, shot a near perfect score of 149 out of a possible 150 points to beat Andrea Becerra of Mexico.
The 16th seed Andrea had knocked out reigning champion Sara Lopez in the pre-quarterfinals while Aditi had beaten her idol and the most successful Indian compound archer, Jyothi Surekha Vennam, 149-145 in an all-Indian semifinal.
But Andrea faced a tough challenge from the sixth seeded Indian, who started off with a bang, drilling in all her first three arrows closer to the centre (X) to take a 30-29 first round lead.
Aditi was on target in all of her 12 arrows in the first four rounds to extend her lead by three points. It was only in the final end, she shot one 9 out of the three arrows, but by then she had already sealed India's second World Championship gold ever.
Aditi Swami gets the FIRST individual WORLD TITLE for India.
The 17-year-old prodigy is now the world champion. 🏆#WorldArchery pic.twitter.com/oBbtgxyzq3- World Archery (@worldarchery) August 5, 2023
Also on the podium was Jyothi, who went on to win a bronze medal when she shot a perfect 150 to defeat Ipek Tomruk of Turkey by four points in the third-place play-off.
Jyothi now has one gold, four silver and three bronze medals from three editions of the World Archery Championships.
Medals won by Indians in World Archery Championships
Recurve:
Madrid, 2005: silver by men's team of Tarundeep Rai, Gautam Singh and Jayanta Talukdar.
Turin (Italy), 2011: silver by women's team of Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro.
Copenhagan, 2015: silver by women's team of Deepika Kumari, Rimil Buriuly and Laxmirani Majhi.
Den Bosch (Netherlands), 2019: silver by men's team of Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das and Pravin Jadhav.
Compound:
Copenhagan, 2015: individual silver by Rajat Chauhan.
Mexico City, 2017: silver by women's team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Trisha Deb and Lily Chanu Paonam.
Den Bosch (Netherlands), 2019: bronze by women's team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Muskan Kirar and Raj Kaur; individual bronze by Jyothi.
Yankton, 2021: individual silver by Jyothi; silver by women's team of Jyothi, Muskan Kirar and Priya Gurjar; silver by mixed team of Abhishek Verma and Jyothi.