NAGOYA: No, not Indians; the gathered South Korean media were in awe. They have not factored this in. If the women's archery team's loss was shocking, this was even more so. Unbelievable, one can say. But for the Indian archer Kumkum Mohod, it was all in her mind – the gold.
The 17-year-old's visualisation was almost like a premonition. She could see the Xs even in her sleep. The 10s keep floating in front of her when she closes her eyes. “I visualised my shooting. I visualised hitting a 10 on every shot, and I also visualised winning the gold medal,” she said after winning a historic individual recurve gold in the Asian Games on Saturday.
India do not beat South Korea every day. It is considered monumental because of the standard the teams have set over the years in archery. Kumkum beat them thrice in two days. She is still competing with a borrowed bow because she is comfortable with it. She speaks very little; only specific answers. Like her game, she loves to focus on it. No mobile, no social media, and she deleted her YouTube account. No unnecessary distractions. She has kept away from sweets, her favourite food. The only targets are the colourful rings of archery 50m away.
The 17-year-old from Maharashtra was in immaculate form on Saturday, the final day of the archery competition. She has had a tremendous run of games to beat South Korea's Oh Ye-jin in a shoot-off.On Saturday, her power of visualisation propelled her to the top of the podium – the first time in individual recurve an Indian has won gold. Kumkum kept repeating one word – visualisation as it’s the only word in her lexicon. “I could visualise I would shoot X in the shoot-off,” she said like a hermit.
Life has not been easy for her. Her father, Anil Manohar Mohod, and coach Prafull Dange are the two people who supported her throughout her journey. Mohod has had trouble financing her trips. Making sweet boxes was his profession, but due to the pandemic, he had to stop. Kumkum, on the other hand, continued her romance with the sport, climbing one step at a time.
And it all culminated in a fairy tale at the Asian Games. With this gold, she has become one of the most successful athletes at this Games with two gold and one silver. The draw, as expected, was not easy for her. Being a young archer has its advantages, as one of her teammates described it quite succinctly. “There is no past baggage,” she had said yesterday. There is no pressure of any kind. Every win is considered historic, and every win is a part of her process.
First she beat the world champion Kang Chae-young, then the world championship finalist Zhu Jingyi, and then another Korean archer Oh Ye-jin. “I believed in myself, which is why I could deliver,” she said. “The team's support was huge, and their positive mindset helped me a lot.”Kumkum loves drawing. Arts and crafts are her other hobbies. She never thought one day she would be standing with gold dangling around her neck. She took one step at a time. “I just aimed at the target, tried to score, and chased points,” she said. “As I kept doing it and improving, I started dreaming bigger.”
Around 2020, during the sub-junior nationals, she started to dream big. She had competed in that championship with an Indian bow. The competition was not hunky dory. She had shot an eight as well. But immediately she came back with a 10 – that had been the hallmark of her game. She keeps focus on her game rather than the point. She said as much: “I told myself to reset. My focus was drifting toward the arrow, so I reminded myself to focus on my shooting form instead of the result.”
Coach Sonam Tsering spoke highly of her. One quality he is in awe of is her maturity at this age. "She is not afraid of the podium; not afraid of the fact that she is young. She doesn't care about the world," he said.