Picture Credit: Twitter
16-year-old Aditi Gopichand Swami has burst onto the scene with an impressive performance at the Archery World Cup Stage Three in Medellin, Colombia. The debutant smashed the Under 18 world record and topped the compound women’s field.
Swami scored an astonishing 711/720 in the 72-arrow compound qualification round comfortably eclipsing the previous record of 705/720 set by Liko Arreola of the USA in 2019 and also came close to the senior record of 713, held by Colombian Sara Lopez. Fellow archers Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur finished second and sixth respectively to ensure that the Indian women’s team were seeded first in the compound women’s team matches.
“I didn’t expect that I was going to shoot like that and that score, but now I’m very happy with that score because I’m only 16 years old,” Swami told World Archery.
The Indian women’s compound team also topped the qualification with a cumulative 2119 points and missed the world record set by the Republic of Korea (2120) by just one point. Swami, who started archery at the age of nine, has already won several medals at the national and international levels. The youngster won a gold medal at the Asian Archery Championships in 2019 and a silver medal at the Youth World Championships in 2021.
