Aditi Swami becomes first individual world champion archer from India

17-year-old Aditi Gopichand Swami became the new world champion in compound archery by beating Mexico's Andrea Becerra 149-147 in the World Archery Championships finals on Saturday. She is also the youngest ever world champion archer.

Aditi is the first individual world champion in archery from India, across any discipline and gender. The women's compound team had won the first gold for the country in the team finals on Friday.

"All my efforts so far have borne fruit today. I have been waiting to have the 52-second national anthem playing on the podium...This is only the beginning, I want to win the Asian Games gold medal next for India," Aditi said after her historic win.

Earlier, Aditi upset the more experienced Jyothi Surekha Vennam in the semifinals. Jyothi, for her part, came back from the disappointment of her semifinal elimination by hitting a perfect score in the bronze medal match. She beat Ipek Tomruk of Turkey to win a bronze medal, her 8th Worlds medal of all time.

Jyothi had been the star of the Indian women compund team's gold medal - India's first archery gold medal in the history of the WAC - on Friday. But it was the upcoming Aditi Swami who got the better of her to create history.

On 8 July 2023, Aditi Gopichand Swami had secured the biggest win of her career by being crowned Under-18 women's World champion in Limerick, Ireland. She became just the fourth Indian - after Palton Hansda (2006), Deepika Kumari (2009, 2011) and Komalika Bari (2019, 2021) - to win an individual medal at the World Archery Youth Championships.

But on August 5, she has given India an even more historic occasion - a world champion archer in the senior category, something the country has been in an endless wait for so far.