In the last month, Dhiraj Bommadevara left Saltillo, Mexico, as the World Cup Final champion, flew out of Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with two Asian Games medals, and landed in Hyderabad to compete in the Archery Premier League (APL).
He lost to compatriot Neeraj Chauhan for the individual bronze. “I’m enjoying my time, living my dream. And he is coming up with some of his career’s best shooting. In Mexico, Dhiraj shot an X in the shoot-off against Japan’s Junya Nakanishi in the final to become India’s first male gold medallist at the World Cup finale. “I have been consistent in my hard work, and the results have followed.
In Japan, Dhiraj topped the men’s recurve qualification round with an Asian Games record score of 698, and took two silver medals with his men’s team and Kumkum Mohod in mixed. Because it came with success as well as a lot of learning.”, i feel like the Asian Games was almost a perfect tournament for me,.
“No matter the tournament, it’s archery, at the end of the day,” said Dhiraj. “So good, so strong,” Dhiraj told HT in summing up how he felt about his archery currently.
“When your team places that trust on you, especially juniors, it makes me feel like sharing my experience even more. We are lucky with the kind of atmosphere and the juniors coming in the team. The best thing with them is that they come and ask things without any hesitation. When they come to you themselves, you feel like helping them more. “There’s one thing that I learnt from Kim: a good teacher develops a player in a way that the player doesn’t need a teacher. “I believe a good team is one where everyone follows their roles like a leader. Like, our Asian Games team did not have a specific captain. Every archer had the right to speak up, share their thoughts, guide the team, and talk to any of us on a personal level. That camaraderie was evident in Aichi-Nagoya, across all the recurve teams. What also helps develop team building is a league like APL, where conversations bounce around not just between seniors-juniors but also compound-recurve and Indian-foreign archers.
“I love it,” Dhiraj said. I keep that in mind,” said Dhiraj. “It’s good to learn how to have these healthy conversations, and how they can be tuned for positive outcomes in any situation,” said Dhiraj.
