“She is confident and mentally strong" - Archery champion Aditi Gopichand Swami's father reveals her strengths as she sets her eyes on Asian Games

Aditi Gopichand Swami celebrated her 17th birthday this June without much partying. This was because she was busy preparing for the 2023 Berlin World Archery Championships at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex in Sonepat, Haryana. The global competition started on July 31 and concluded on Sunday (August 6).

“Before boarding the flight to Germany, she (Aditi) promised us that she will return with a gold medal in individual and team events,” Aditi’s proud father Gopichand Shankar Swami told Sportskeeda over the phone from Satara. “We all are happy that she was successful in achieving her goals.”

Aditi, who won the world cadet (U18) title this year, added another feather to her cap last week in the German capital. She clinched senior individual women’s world championships gold in the compound event.

The compound event only features in World Championships and Asian Games and not in the Olympics. The proud parents attribute Aditi’s success to her self-belief.

“She is confident and mentally strong,” the father explained.

After becoming senior world champion, Aditi called her father saying the podium in Berlin was her first lesson towards the Hangzhou Asian Games preparation in September. The 12th-standard science student will be extremely busy until the Asian Games starting September 23 in China.

“She always has her school books in her luggage while traveling for competitions or national coaching camps,” Aditi’s father revealed. “Her school teachers are very accommodating.”

The journey of the promising archer from Maharashtra’s Satara began in 2016. Aditi’s rise to stardom also highlights the struggles a middle-class family in India has to go through if their children pursue competitive sports as a career. Players often practice with ordinary facilities during their formative years.

Aditi’s rise to fame also reveals that there is no structured system in India and it all boils down to the individual efforts of the parents and grassroots coaches.

While her mother works in the State Gram Panchayat department, Aditi’s father is a school teacher in a semi-government school in Satara. He had to take a loan in 2018 to purchase the first set of archery equipment for his daughter, costing roughly ₹2.5 lahks.

Aditi Gopichand Swami paid back the trust shown by her parents by winning silver in the U14 category at the 2018 national school games competition and a year later, she won gold.

The process of taking a loan to buy new equipment continued as Aditi grew in height and needed new tools of archery.

“Players on the fringes don’t get any support. Aditi only got support from the government this year in her preparation for the world championship,” the father added.

Aditi’s father wanted her daughter to pursue sports to stay healthy. Therefore, he took her to a playground in Satara where multiple sports were played. Aditi was attracted to archery. That got her introduced to the sport and she has never looked back.

Local archery coach Pravin Sawant reviewed Aditi’s physical fitness and body structure. He advised her to take a compound event.

“Initially she started with the Indian round and later started compound event,” the father recalls.

The father's daily schedule is quite hectic. Before going to work in the morning, he has to drop Aditi to a local academy where she does her normal practice if she is not attending national camps. In the evening, he has to pick her daughter again from the academy.

“The archery academy is roughly 7km from our home. We are as busy as our archery playing daughter,” the father said. “Aditi doesn’t believe in having food supplements and is fond of dairy products and fruits.”

Seeing her elder sister make waves at the world level, Aditi’s younger brother Aditya too has started archery.

“He is in sixth class. We hope he will make a big impression in the future,” the father said.