Indian Archery Thread ...

[Orang]

Hope 3rd time is the charm:

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[prasen9]

Deepika Kumari's Netflix documentary is excellent in case anyone has not seen it yet. I think we have a great future in archery. It is sad how society demeaned Kumari just because she failed in the last Olympics.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80219143

Not a rhetorical question, but a genuine one: how did society demean Deepika?

[indiansportsfan]

Also btw it's not a case of only the last Olympics, she has done it time and again in every Olympics and every Asian Games as well. And there are multiple instances of her shooting a 7 or 5, when her team needed her to shoot a 9 or 10 in a tense situation.

[prasen9]

I am interested in finding out what Orang means by "demean". What was done? Criticizing her performance, stating that she has not been good enough, are all fair criticisms. Technically, demeaning in the sense that we are bringing down her reputation a notch from what it was hyped to. In essence, that is demeaning but that is also right-sizing. Fair and fine imho. If there were other things that go beyond fair criticism and goes into personal insults, etc. those are bad. Let's hear what prompted Orang to say that society demeaned her.

[Orang]

You have to watch the actual documentary to understand as I never knew all this before. In Kumari's first Olympics, she was inexperienced and only age 18. In the second one, she failed. So one real failure.

Thereafter, many fellow villagers and a lot of the news media insulted her and basically forgot about all her great achievements. In spite of coming from complete poverty and being the only girl in her village to be able to "get out".

Some of the villagers were suspicious about she was getting money despite not medaling (they implied illegal activities).

In one scene, the journos come to her village and make her cry right after her failure.

I have not followed her performances regularly, but per the documentary, it seems like she achieved everything except an Olympics medal. Therefore she became a nobody in the eyes of many

If she gets any medal in this Olympics, I will be truly delighted for her. If she does not, I suspect she will be demeaned more than any other athlete in Indian history.

Just remember that we have just 17 individual (non-hockey team) medals in our entire 120 year Olympics participation history. And several of those 17 might also be thinks like double/triple/quadruple partner events).

Deepika Kumari's Netflix documentary is excellent in case anyone has not seen it yet. I think we have a great future in archery. It is sad how society demeaned Kumari just because she failed in the last Olympics.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80219143

Not a rhetorical question, but a genuine one: how did society demean Deepika?

[prasen9]

Still trying to get to the bottom of this. The insults by her fellow villagers, if it happened, are deplorable. We cannot find out what happened. Wrt news media, do you have any pointers to any articles or videos where she is insulted, demeaned, etc.? I would like to see if this was indeed a case of bad treatment or whether this is sensationalization to create a story. Again, I am not saying it did not happened, I want to find out what happened in the media to figure out how bad it was or even what it was that happened since I did not see anything like that. I admit I do not get or consume much of Indian media though. Hence, the genuine question.

Even if she does not win anything in the Olympics or even chokes at the last step, etc., she is an Indian archery great and a great archer worldwide too. Maybe not Olympic-medal level yet or may be she is, but certainly a level below that for sure. She should get credit for her achievements.

[prasen9]

Just remember that we have just 17 individual (non-hockey team) medals in our entire 120 year Olympics participation history. And several of those 17 might also be thinks like double/triple/quadruple partner events).

Which ones are "thinks like double/triple/quadruple partner events" (whatever that means)?

Does not matter what we have. We must demand better. And, for someone who is not at the top of the sport, we should call her such, while noting that there may have been great athletes who never reached the absolute top of their sport.

There are several players who receive grants from the government but do not medal. We should call them out and say so. That does not imply something illegal. Did someone explicitly claim that she was doing something illegal? It seems to me that there is some amount of sensationalization is going on here. I want to get to the facts.

[Orang]

In the documentary, there is a live scene where the journalists make her cry.

Otherwise, just Google "Deepika Kumari chokes" and you can read such articles.

I am scared to see what they will say if she does not medal this time. It will likely be her last chance.

[Orang]

The double/triple/quadruple means potentially any event where you compete in a small team of 2/3/4 people. e.g., doubles in racket sports, relays, archery and shooting team events etc.

I did not have time to find out how many of the 17 medals involved more than 1 person as it would take a while to research. All I was saying is that it is crazy hard to get an actual individual medal. We likely have even less than 15 in 120 years of competing.

After watching the documentary, I have huge respect for what this lady has achieved against all odds.

Yes, in the documentary, they discuss the explicit allegations.

Just remember that we have just 17 individual (non-hockey team) medals in our entire 120 year Olympics participation history. And several of those 17 might also be thinks like double/triple/quadruple partner events).

Which ones are "thinks like double/triple/quadruple partner events"?

Does not matter what we have. We must demand better. And, for someone who is not at the top of the sport, we should call her such, while noting that there may have been great athletes who never reached the absolute top of their sport.

There are several players who receive grants from the government but do not medal. We should call them out and say so. That does not imply something illegal. Did someone explicitly claim that she was doing something illegal? It seems to me that there is some amount of sensationalization is going on here. I want to get to the facts.

[prasen9]

The double/triple/quadruple means potentially any event where you compete in a small team of 2/3/4 people. e.g., doubles in racket sports, relays, archery and shooting team events etc.

I did not have time to find out how many of the 17 medals involved more than 1 person as it would take a while to research. All I was saying is that it is crazy hard to get an actual individual medal. We likely have even less than 15 in 120 years of competing.

I know you do not have the time because it does take an awful lot of time to find something that does not exist. Please check the accuracy of your claims to the extent you can and not make up stuff. To the extent I know, all the other medals than hockey were individual medals.

After watching the documentary, I have huge respect for what this lady has achieved against all odds.

I have a huge respect for this lady. She has done better than any other Indian perhaps in her field. But, that does not mean that whatever the documentary says is correct. Even if it is, it is good practice, to get the same information from multiple sources before believing it.

Yes, in the documentary, they discuss the explicit allegations.

I am not interested in allegations and potentially false propaganda. If you have news articles, etc. that you are alleging insulted her, all you have to do is post links to it. Please show the evidence of your claims or retract the false claims. That is all I am asking.

If there was so much demeaning against her, it should be easy to find some and provide the proof. Then, I will shut up.

[prasen9]

In Bangla, there is a saying "kage kaan niyeche". Literally, that means "crow took my ear". The idea is that someone said that the crow took away someone's ear and the person runs around panicked saying that the crow took his ear without checking to see that it is still there. These days with social media and easy documentary-making, etc. we should not believe everything we see but demand multiple sources of verification before believing something and dig deeper to find out what exactly happened. What her village neighbors did, we may never be able to find out. But, if the claim is that the media did things, there must be some trace that we can examine to see if the crow indeed took my ear or I still have it.

[suresh]

I totally agree with @prasen9. I do think Deepika has choked multiple times and would love to have prove me wrong this time around. She is also an all time archery great in my book.

[Sin Hombre]

Well, she is a choker.

The media calling her that is factual. It is on her to prove that wrong.

[prasen9]

She is a choker only perhaps at the Olympics. She is not a choker at the World Cups, Commonwealth Games, etc. at least not always a choker. She has substantial achievements in the sport and genuinely deserves the Padma Shri or whatever award she got, etc.

[Sin Hombre]

She is a choker only perhaps at the Olympics. She is not a choker at the World Cups, Commonwealth Games, etc. at least not always a choker. She has substantial achievements in the sport and genuinely deserves the Padma Shri or whatever award she got, etc.

CWG hasn't had archery since 2010.

Her best performance was the Asian Games 2010 where she finished 4th in the individual and won the team bronze (though if I recall correctly, she choked in the shootout in the semifinals when we tied Korea, arguably our best performance ever until then).

Asian Games 2014, she lost in R32.

Asian Games 2018, she lost in R16.

No individual medals in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 World Championships.


If you are saying that she is an Indian archery great and deserves her Padma Shri, I have no arguments against that.