No Instagram & YouTube, second-hand bow from father's savings: Making of Asiad gold medallist archer Kumkum

CHENNAI: Adolescence is a time when children grow by exploring, making mistakes, and learning from them. But for 17-year-old recurve archer Kumkum Anil Mohod, it's all about seeking perfection, no matter what. Given the hard yard she has put in over the years, the teenager, along with Kirti and Ankita Bhakat, on Friday scripted history by beating favourites South Korea in the women's team event final to win gold and qualify for the Olympics in 2028. But she is still not satisfied. After winning silver in the mixed event with Dhiraj Bommadevara, Kumkum has another shot at gold in the individual event. The quarterfinals is set to begin on Saturday.

After winning two medals, she first dialled coach Praful Dange. "She said, 'sorry, sir, I couldn't do well in the mixed team (final), otherwise there was no issue,'" Dhange told this daily on Friday.

That mindset mostly comes from her coach's philosophy. “I keep telling her – whatever you have to do, you have to do it at this age. As you grow older, as your age increases, your responsibilities will also increase, and your focus might also get diverted,” said Dange.

Dange, who has trained Kumkum for eight years, lauded her dedication. “Whatever task she is given, she completes it 101%, the whole day's task, no matter how late it is. If she has to reach the ground at 6 AM, she will reach by 6 AM. Sometimes she even reaches before me. That's why her result is showing now. I told her that we have to keep this exact mindset until the Los Angeles Olympics,” he said.

In this age of social media, when it has become trendy to have accounts on every available platform, Kumkum is an exception. “For three years, I've kept myself away from Facebook, and on Insta(gram), she doesn't even have an account. I told her too that if you want to progress and achieve something big, you will have to avoid all these things. Now, she has even deleted her YouTube account,” Dange said.

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But what stood out on Friday, when she won gold and silver, was Kumkum’s bow. It is a second-hand bow bought in 2022 out of savings by her father Anil Mohod. “She has a lot of trust in it. Technically speaking, the handle shouldn't be changed randomly or frequently. That's why the old handle suits her. The limbs, which are the upper and lower limbs of the bow, arrows, and other things, we keep changing. The handle suits her.” Dange added.

Behind Kumkum’s bow, which guided her to glory, is her father's sacrifice. Mohod, until 2024, used to make sweet boxes out of paper for bakeries and sweet shops in Amravati in Maharashtra. Ever since the pandemic hit, his customer count came down, and eventually had to put it on hold for her daughter. When she began archery in 2018, she began with an Indian bow. However, she was supposed to take the recurve bow in 2020, but due to Covid pandemic, she got it only in 2022. “That bow cost around Rs 1.87 lakh. We bought the bow from my 10 years' of savings and with support from coach Praful. Later on, we kept buying parts with his support,” Mohod revealed.

It all began when her mother saw a girl practising archery in Amravati. “Kumkum was in class four at the time. She thought, 'Is there a bow and arrow game too?' She shared that with us. Coach Praful had started an academy of his own not far away from here, so her mother told her to go and check it out,” Mohod added.

Ever since she took the bow and arrows, she has not left a stone unturned. This year, she went on to win her first World Cup medal – a gold at the women’s team event at the Shanghai leg in April this year.

But her goal remains a medal at the Olympics. “I still have faith that Kumkum will give India its first Olympic medal,” Mohod signed off.