Taarak Mehta, sad songs, ice cream: Meet 17-year-old archer who toppled Korea - The Indian Express

When Kumkum Mohod was born in 2009, South Korea had already spent two decades ruling women’s recurve archery. When she picked up a wooden bow in 2018, Korea had six straight Asian Games team titles and Olympic champions in its ranks. On Saturday, at her first Asian Games, the 17-year-old tore through that dynasty one Korean at a time, and then shot the final arrow into the 10-ring to become an Asiad champion. She made history by becoming the first Indian recurve archer to win an individual gold medal at the Asian Games.

And what a route she took to get there. Mohod beat two Koreans, including the world champion Kang Chae-young, nicknamed ‘the destroyer’, and a Chinese archer on her way to the title.

“I had visualised this,” she said. “I had visualised my match against Kang… And before the shoot-off, I had visualised shooting an X (dead centre of target), and that is exactly what happened.”

There is something almost absurd about all of this when you remember that Mohod is still 17. Her first Asian Games has already given her two gold medals and a silver, and she has beaten Korea three times along the way. She has done it without seeming particularly interested in the weight of the names on the targets beside her. “I stay focused on my own process,” she said. “You are aware of who you are shooting against, but while shooting, I stay in my own zone and focus on my key points.”

That might sound like the polished answer of an established champion. Then you hear Mohod talk about what she actually does when she is not shooting arrows.

She likes drawing and arts and crafts. She watches Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. She likes sad songs, but, as she puts it, “I like to laugh”. And her favourite food is butterscotch ice cream, something she has not touched since arriving at the Asian Games camp on September 11 because she had decided to stay disciplined towards her goal.

It is that mixture, the seriousness of an elite athlete and the ordinariness of a teenager, that makes the scene in Okazaki so difficult to process.

Mohod was only nine when she first held a bow. “I didn’t think much back then,” she said. “I just aimed at the target, tried to score, and chased points.” The ambitions came later, as the scores improved. “As I kept doing it and improving, I started dreaming bigger.”

And somewhere along the way, the teenager who once simply chased points became good enough to chase down the names she had grown up admiring. Kang was one of them. Mohod was in awe of how the South Korean, a former Olympic and world champion, released the bow with precise movements.

On Saturday, she couldn’t care less for reputations. Mohod first shocked Kang 6-4 in the quarterfinals, and overcame China’s 2025 World Championships silver medallist Zhu Jingyi 6-2 in the semifinals.

Then came Oh Ye-jin, a Korean who had already helped her country to team silver the previous day. Oh took the opening set 29-27 after Mohod finished with an eight, and the Korean moved 3-1 ahead after they shared the second. Mohod responded with a perfect 30 in the third, only to fall 3-5 behind after the fourth when another eight left her chasing the match. “When I hit an 8,” Kumkum explained, “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.”

She returned to the shooting line and fired a perfect score of 30 to force a single arrow shoot-off. Oh shot an eight. Mohod shot a 10.

In the stands, recurve archer Yashdeep Bhoge, who won a team silver on Friday, sighed: “Ghatak.”

India’s recurve coach, Sonam Tshering, was barely surprised, however. Behind the glare of the cameras, he had seen Kumkum do the less glamorous things right: she was always at training, punctual, obedient and disciplined. Then there was the thing that has become one of her biggest weapons — speed. “She can shoot fast,” Tshering said. “If she holds more, the arms will vibrate. Her rhythm and process is very quick.”

On average, Mohod takes just two or three seconds to aim and release. That rhythm was tested in the final when she dropped an eight at a crucial moment. But her response showed she had something that many Indian archers before her didn’t. “She has a lot of guts. Outside the archery field, she is very shy. But on it, she transforms completely,” Tshering said. “Her results are proof.”

And those results have come against the very archers India had spent decades chasing.

South Korea had won the women’s recurve team gold at every Asian Games from 1998 through 2022. On Friday, India ended that run. A day later, Mohod beat another Korean in the individual final.

At 17, she had now done what generations of Indian archers could not.

Over the course of a 18-year-long career, Mihir Vasavda has covered 2010 FIFA World Cup; the London 2012, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games; Asian Games in 2014 and 2022; Commonwealth Games in 2010 and 2018; Hockey World Cups in 2018 and 2023 and the 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup. ... Read More