Mumbai: A day before the Asian Games trials in May, archer Prithika Pradeep got her class 12th results—93%.
Prithika, who celebrated her 18th birthday five days ago in Aichi-Nagoya, won the women’s team compound Asian Games gold alongside teammates Jyothi Surekha Venna and Chikitha Taniparthi. Prithika was excellent in the final against China. She shot all 10s, like senior teammate Jyothi, showing composure beyond her age.
The Pune-based archer competed in the World Cup Stage 4 in Madrid, winning bronze. It was the only individual World Cup medal by an Indian woman in compound this year, underlining the potential of the 2024 Asian Youth champion, 2025 World Youth silver medallist, the and senior Asian Championships runner-up of last year.
“I was happy, but I was more focused on the trials,” she said.
“I knew I had worked hard for both,” Prithika said. “It was my goal for this year to play at the Asian Games.”
The love for archery began in school in Pune, where the Nagercoil-born Prithika and her family have lived for the past 15 years after moving from Tamil Nadu. Prithika was up and running in the May trials for the next two World Cups and the Asian Games after getting time for some technical work post her class 12th exams While she missed the bus in the January trials for the first two World Cup stages. “It was her dream to stand on the podium. I didn’t expect that she would get there so fast. “I love both archery and studies. She immediately got intrigued.
Her coach Kunal Taware termed it a “big achievement” to even make the Asian Games squad, surpassing more experienced competitors in the trials. “Winning that individual World Cup medal will give her a lot of belief,” Taware said. “If I like something, I do it happily,” Prithika told HT before the Asian Games. Asked to pick a hobby in school, Prithika hadn’t heard of archery until her mother, a teacher, told her it was a game of “bow and arrow”.
