At some point during the final against South Korea’s Oh Yejin, Kumkum Anil Mohod had already done the difficult part. She had fallen behind, recovered, fallen behind again and forced the contest into a shoot-off. What remained was one arrow, one target and a chance to do something no Indian recurve archer had done before at the Asian Games.
Oh shot an eight.
Kumkum shot a 10, and with it won a historic Gold medal in women’s individual recurve archery in Aichi-Nagoya on Saturday, October 3.
The 17-year-old from Amravati crossed a barrier that Indian recurve archery had spent years pressing against. Kumkum became the first Indian woman to win an individual Asian Games medal in recurve, after helping India win a historic women’s team gold and adding a mixed team silver. She did it at her first Asian Games, against a Korean opponent, in a final that went down to its last arrow. The victory also secured an individual quota place for India at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
There was a strange inevitability to it.
Her coach, Praful Dange, had been telling her for years that the individual medal was the one he wanted. Team and mixed-team medals were welcome, he says, but they were not the ultimate test.
“I addressed her as ‘Champion’ first,” Dange tells IndiaToday.in, recalling the conversation after the gold.
“Until now, she didn’t have an individual medal in the international circuit.
“She achieved that for the first time, and that too a Gold! I always tell her that I am not interested in team or mixed team events. I want an individual medal because our game is individual. Team and mixed team are good if they happen, but if you win an individual medal, according to me, you are the real champion of that tournament.”
SUNDAYS AREN’T OFF DAYS
Kumkum had just given him exactly what he had been asking for. And yet, if you ask Praful Dange what makes her special, he does not begin with the gold, the shoot-off or the Korean opponents. He talks about Sundays.
“Even when I give a holiday on Sunday, she says, ‘No sir, I want to go and practise at least once,’” he says.
“I tell her, ‘Listen to me, muscles get tired.’ I literally have to argue with her or tell her parents not to send her, so that she doesn’t get injured. That’s my intention.”
For Kumkum, there has never seemed to be much of a distinction between an ordinary day and a training day. Festivals can wait. Family functions can wait. Sunday can wait.
“Practice comes first, and then we will see about Diwali or Dussehra if there’s time to celebrate,” Dange says.
“Otherwise, archery is everything for her.”
That single-mindedness has taken Kumkum a remarkably long way in a remarkably short time.
Born in 2009, in Maharashtra, she made her international debut only in 2025. Her rise through the domestic system was rapid, and by 2026 she had established herself in the senior national recurve set-up. At the World Cup Stage 2 in Shanghai, she teamed up with Ankita Bhakat and four-time Olympian Deepika Kumari to win gold, ending India’s five-year wait for a women’s recurve team World Cup title.
Then came the Asian Games trials in Sonepat.
Kumkum topped qualification, won six matches in the second stage and finished second overall behind Kirti Sharma. Deepika Kumari, a four-time Olympian and one of the most recognisable names in Indian archery, finished fourth and missed the Asian Games team.
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For a teenager who had made her international debut only the previous year, it was another indication that the old order was shifting.
Praful Dange remembers knowing there was something there much earlier.
“I knew it right from the beginning, but I didn’t disclose that she would definitely bring a medal,” he says.
“But I got the vibrations. I don’t know how, but I got positive vibes that this girl would bring a medal.”
A CHAMPION’S MINDSET
The beginning, though, was not in a national camp or at a high-performance centre. It was in a colony in Amravati.
Kumkum and Dange lived in the same area. In 2018, her father approached him on the auspicious day of Holi, the coach remembers. Dange had recently started the Radhey Archery Training Centre in Shankar Nagar, and Kumkum’s father wanted his daughter to try the sport.
There was little about those early days that suggested the scale of what was to come. Kumkum’s first equipment was basic. Her family initially had to manage with a wooden bow before she moved to a second-hand recurve set. Her father, Anil Manohar Mohod, makes cardboard boxes for sweet shops in Amravati, and the family had to make sacrifices to keep her training going.
Dange remembers the equipment, but he remembers the attitude more.
He saw her shoulder strength almost immediately. That influenced his decision to move her towards recurve, where the demands on the archer’s strength and technique are considerably greater.
“Based on her shooting position on the wooden bow, I judged that this girl could do really well in Recurve because her shoulder strength is genuinely very good,” he says.
“Her basic release, which is a crucial part of archery using fingers in Recurve, was built very strong.”
The route to that release was not glamorous. For five or six months, Dange made her shoot at short distances. There was no immediate gratification of standing far away from a target face and chasing big scores. For a young archer, it was the kind of repetitive work that could easily become tedious.
Kumkum did not complain.
“She practised at short distances continuously for 5–6 months,” Dange says.
“Although that is a boring task for a new archer, as every kid wants to put up a target face and score from Day 1, she never got bored of it or denied doing it. She built a very strong base.”
The work also went beyond shooting arrows. Dange made her run. He made her do push-ups. He made her build the physical strength required to repeatedly draw and hold a recurve bow.
“If I tell her to run 4–5 kilometres today, she never says no,” he says.
“In strength, if I tell her to do push-ups or push her limits today, she agrees to that too. So as coaches, we also enjoy working with such kids.”
That mentality has remained intact even as the surroundings changed. The teenager, who once trained with basic equipment, is now part of India’s national set-up and has received support through systems including Khelo India, SAI and the national federation. Her Asian Games cycle included financial assistance through TOPS and the Annual Calendar for Training and Competition. Yet the old habits remain.
LOGGED OFF, LOCKED IN
There is one particularly striking example.
Praful Dange says he had repeatedly told her to stay away from social media because archery, in his view, is as much a mental game as a physical one.
“Yes, absolutely, I told her!” he says when asked whether he had asked her to stay off Instagram and Facebook.
“If you want to progress, you have to stay away from all these things. Ours is a mental game, a game of mindset.”
Then Kumkum took it a step further herself.
“Even now, she is in Japan, but for the past month, she deleted YouTube. I hadn’t even asked her to do that! She deleted YouTube on her own. From this, you can gauge her mindset level.”
It is a detail that makes sense of the Sundays.
The sacrifice is not something she has been forced to make only because a coach demanded it. She appears to have internalised the idea that every distraction is a choice and every hour can be put towards getting better.
District Sports Officer Ganesh Jadhav describes another side of that personality.
“She was a very silent girl, extremely simple and grounded,” Jadhav tells IndiaToday.in.
“Win or lose, she didn’t show over excitement. The reason she won these medals is her silence and her absolute focus on practice. Not a single day did she stop practising, be it Diwali or any festival. That consistency is what got her these medals.”
That quietness travelled with her to Japan.
By the time Kumkum reached the individual event, the challenge was no longer merely to prove that she belonged at the Asian Games. She was facing some of the strongest recurve archers in the world.
In the quarterfinal, she beat South Korea’s Kang Chaeyoung, the reigning world champion and a Tokyo Olympic team gold medallist. In the semifinal, she defeated China’s Zhu Jingyi, a world championship silver medallist, to become the first Indian woman to reach the Asian Games individual recurve final.
Then came Oh Yejin.
The Korean took the first set 29-27 and moved 2-0 ahead. The second set was tied 29-29, leaving Kumkum trailing 1-3. She responded with three consecutive 10s in the third set to shoot a perfect 30 and level the match at 3-3.
Oh regained the advantage in the fourth set to make it 5-3. One more set would end the contest. Kumkum produced another perfect 30. The match was 5-5.
Then came the one arrow that will live in Indian recurve history.
Oh shot eight. Kumkum shot 10. Gold.
“Today I am feeling like it’s Dussehra or Diwali! From 5:30 in the morning until now, I don’t even know when I am drinking tea or when I am drinking water. It is a matter of immense joy today,” coach Praful says.
The individual gold was especially significant because of what it represented for Indian recurve.
India’s archery story at major events has increasingly included success in compound, while recurve has produced its share of team medals and near misses. South Korea, meanwhile, has long been the benchmark in recurve. At these Games alone, India’s women’s recurve team had already beaten South Korea 5-3 to win its first Asian Games gold in the event, ending the Koreans’ seven-Games winning streak.
But the individual barrier remained. Kumkum broke it.
And she did so as a 17-year-old competing at her first Asian Games, barely a year after making her international debut.
Jadhav says the achievement has transformed the way Amravati looks at what is possible.
She has won three medals, which is a matter of immense joy for our Amravati district and the Sports Department.She delivered such a great performance and also finalised an Olympic quota. That is huge for Amravati,” he says.
The quota belongs to India rather than guaranteeing Kumkum herself a place in Los Angeles, but the 17-year-old has already made her ambition clear.
Meanwhile, Jadhav has already made a promise for what comes next.
“If she brings an Olympic medal, we will name our Amravati Archery Range after Kumkum Mohod,” he says.
For now, the range still has its old name. Kumkum, meanwhile, has three Asian Games medals, an Olympic quota secured for India and a place in the history of Indian archery that cannot be taken away.
And if her coach has anything to do with it, she will probably be back at the range soon. Even if it happens to be Sunday.
– Ends
