CHENNAI: THE state of Maharashtra, which has been producing archery exponents, may have another talent in the making. Sharvari Shende, 16, took the archery arena in Grant Park in Winnipeg, Canada by storm, by defeating South Korea's Kim Yewon, in a tie-breaker after a long final tie in the U18 women's recurve category on Sunday.
With this gold, Shende became the third Indian woman to win an U18 world recurve title, with Deepika Kumari doing it first in 2011, followed by Komalika Bari in 2021.
One person who has seen her grow from day one is her first coach from the Swarajya Academy of Archery in Pimpri-Chinchwad and former national level archer Kunal Taware.
He recalled his feelings watching his ward in the final."Frankly speaking, I did not expect her to defeat her. The Koreans are the strongest in this sport. But only we know that. Archers of this generation don't consider their opponent, where they come from. They are their own competition," he told this daily.
Before Taware started his academy, he taught archery to students in GG International School in Pimpri-Chinchwad, where Shende studied. Shende, whose parents practice medicine in Pune, learnt archery from Taware there, with the Indian bow in 2018. Four years and several titles in the mini-sub junior (U14) and sub-junior (U17) categories later, she switched to recurve archery under Taware's advice. "I insisted because she was sharp-minded, had good strength and captured the skills needed for the recurve bow really well," he added.
In 2022, Shende took up the recurve bow and within a year, found herself on the international stage, at the 2023 World Archery Youth Championships in Ireland. "It was a great experience there," said Taware, before adding, "But, this was her first international tournament, and the nerves got the better of her."
She was part of the U18 recurve team with Madhvi Chauhan and Kiran which the trio lost in the quarterfinal to Chinese Taipei 0-6.
Three years later, Shende has turned the fortunes to her favour, and has become on of the talents one can keep an eye on for the future.
Taware further went on to say that if they continue with this same mentality, Indian recurve archers can have the best outing in the LA2028 Olympics. "She (Shende) beat two Korean archers to win this title," he added.
But one thing that budding archers like Shende might fear about is the lack of facilities to train, according to Taware. "We have written to the local corporation, and the state's sports ministry to provide us a ground to train, but to no response. Currently, we train at a friend's ground who is a builder. There may come a day when he might start building on the said land and we are left with no place to practice," he said.