Jyothi Surekha Vennam has collected greater than 90 medals throughout the Asian Video games, Asian and World Championships, World Cups and past, however numbers alone fail to seize what she has develop into. In Indian sport, she exists in a uncommon class of athlete: the type who is anticipated to win earlier than the primary arrow is even drawn. A certain shot, as they name it. A burden disguised as reward.
With compound archery getting ready for its Olympic debut on the 2028 Los Angeles Video games, that certainty is about to be amplified into one thing brighter, heavier, more durable to disregard. It’s on this gathering mild that The Hindu travelled to Vijayawada – crossing a river she as soon as mastered as a five-year-old (which rocketed her into the Limca E book of Information) – to fulfill one of many nation’s most formidable athletes.
Surekha’s world doesn’t announce itself. It hides in plain sight. A gated group. A door no completely different from the others. A house that might belong to anybody – till it doesn’t. Inside, silence provides strategy to shimmer. Medals catch the sunshine like fragments of a protracted, relentless dialog with time.
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What was as soon as a bed room has surrendered itself to reminiscence, turning into a walk-in archive of effort and repetition, of early mornings, missed photographs, and moments of precision. Even now, it overflows – trophies resting the place there isn’t any house left for them.
It’s right here that the 29-year-old sat down, surrounded by the proof of all the things she had carried out, to talk not simply of successful, however of carrying what successful leaves behind and what lies forward.
Thrown within the deep finish
Lengthy earlier than the plethora of medals, earlier than the expectation that she would by no means return house “empty-handed,” earlier than compound archery lastly discovered its place on the Olympics, Surekha was an eight-year-old crying as a result of she didn’t need to take up archery after getting used to the routine of swimming.
Sports activities ran within the household. Her grandfather was a bodily schooling trainer who skilled athletes for kabaddi. Her father, Vennam Surendran Kumar, performed the game himself on the school stage earlier than shifting on to a profession in veterinary science. Surendran and his spouse, Sri Durga, made each main choice relating to their daughter’s involvement in sports activities.
“My dad and mom selected archery principally as a result of it’s a person sport and entails extra focus and focus,” Surekha defined. The concept to select the compound vertical was to permit her the house to additionally steadiness her lecturers.
“We heard then that to shoot a recurve bow, I must give a whole lot of time. It would have an effect on my research. My dad and mom had been very clear that even when I’m into sports activities, I mustn’t neglect my schooling. They needed me to have a plan B if a life in sports activities didn’t pan out.”
Jyothi Surekha along with her father, Vennam Surendran Kumar, and mom, Sri Durga.
| Picture Credit score:
Ok.V.S. Giri
It was not love at first sight for Surekha with archery. The love arrived progressively. When she struck six gold medals at her first nationals, on the U-13 stage in 2008, the game latched on to her, completely now.
Unsurprisingly, the narration of one of the vital consequential moments of her life comes with restraint: “I used to be like… okay, I’m pleased with it.”
Worldwide archery wasn’t as immediately rewarding. Silvers and bronzes stored getting collected, however golds had been elusive at first.
“It took me 12 World Cups to win a medal, and there have been conditions the place individuals had been coming into the workforce for the primary time and so they gained one. I usually requested myself, ‘Why am I not in a position to win a medal within the World Cup?’ I used to be actually upset about it for a very long time.”
Incomes her flowers
That drought would finish in 2018.
“That 12 months was actually nice as a result of in all 4 levels of the World Cup, we gained bronze within the combined workforce occasion, and I additionally bought to win two silvers within the girls’s workforce class as effectively.”
Annually of the almost twenty years she has spent in archery has seen a beneficiant sprinkling of medals throughout tiers of competitors. However a couple of moments stand out. The 2023 Archery World Cup is one among them, the place she shot 713 out of a doable 720 within the first stage in Antalya to match the erstwhile world document.
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“Funnily, in coaching, I felt I used to be lacking one thing. I used to be not assured in any respect. However I knew that it takes only one shot or a single feeling to convey you again. Throughout the qualification, somebody shot 360 whereas I had shot 353, which wasn’t too dangerous. Within the second half, I shot a full 360. It’s one thing I haven’t even carried out in apply. That was the primary and final time I managed that (laughs).”
Her first particular person medal was one other memorable milestone, coming on the 2019 World Championships. Her first particular person World Cup medal got here in Paris in 2022.
The Jyothi Surekha components for fulfillment and crawling out of a rut is as easy and no-nonsense as she herself is. Three hours of apply within the morning, three hours within the second half, plus one hour of bodily exercise accompanying both session. Journaling and visualisation periods additionally determine with no break in her timetable.
“I simply visualise that I’m there in an area, capturing my greatest. I give attention to the method, how I need to execute a shot and ensure I visualise doing it on the similar place repeatedly so it doesn’t appear new to me after I get there.”
And when issues work, the ‘celebration’ is simply as easy.
“More often than not, after I win, I name my dad and mom. We discuss ice cream. No explicit flavour, simply any ice cream.”
Jyothi Surekha turned one of many youngest recipients of the celebrated Arjuna Award in 2017.
| Picture Credit score:
Ok.V.S. Giri
Most of the medals adorning the partitions of Surekha’s home had been victories with out an viewers. So when she turned one of many youngest recipients of the celebrated Arjuna Award in 2017, it was vindication for her, sure, however extra for her dad and mom.
“My dad and mom at all times needed me to earn the Arjuna Award. When it did come, my father stored reminding me that this could now spur me on to be extra accountable and hold giving my greatest.”
It did. She went from energy to energy. Amongst her achievements was a sensational triple gold on the Hangzhou Asian Video games in 2023, the place she scooped up high honours within the girls’s particular person, combined workforce and ladies’s workforce occasions, turning into the primary Indian to win a number of gold medals in archery at a single Asian Video games.
Maybe, the relentlessness of the drive her dad and mom prioritised to maintain attaining tinges her father’s voice when he expresses remorse that she is but to make the recipient record of the Main Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna honour, the nation’s highest sporting award.
Proper for recognition
What might tip the scales? An Olympic medal, perhaps?
Surekha’s profession coincides thankfully with the induction of her class within the roster for the Los Angeles Video games in 2028. When the announcement got here by means of, Surekha was in Florida with the Indian workforce.
“It was the primary day of the World Cup. After our session was accomplished, we had our lunch and had been ready for our bus when instantly, World Archery individuals got here round capturing reactions to the information. Each compound archer was actually completely satisfied. I instantly referred to as my dad and mom.”
She, nevertheless, was fast to place that pleasure into perspective. One which got here from discovering satisfaction in a self-discipline that has lengthy survived exterior the halo of the revered quadrennial extravaganza.
“Olympics is simply the title of the occasion. It’s the identical archers who’re competing on the World Championships, World Cups and extra. In India, nothing else issues apart from the Olympics. But it surely’s not true. There are lots of tournaments simply as huge.
In any other case completely satisfied to make do with a couple of phrases in her responses, Surekha’s ideas replicate immense readability, and maybe, even just a little dissatisfaction.
“That perspective wants to vary. As a result of perhaps if it does, perhaps if the Olympics usually are not provided that a lot precedence, the athletes who’re competing there can carry out much more freely with none stress and provides their greatest efficiency and win extra medals for our nation.”
Nonetheless, the significance of the platform and its positives, significantly for compound archery, is just not misplaced on her.
Jyothi Surekha is all set to guide India’s cost on the 2026 Asian Video games.
| Picture Credit score:
Ok.V.S. Giri
“In the event you have a look at historical past, when anybody wins a medal within the Olympics, that sport as an entire grows. For instance, have a look at badminton, javelin throw and wrestling. There’s a lot hype that comes round for the individual successful a medal and the game they play. The curiosity robotically grows due to the publicity and that takes the game to the following stage.”
Maybe that’s what makes Surekha such a compelling athlete to take heed to proper now. At a time when Indian sport more and more celebrates noise, branding, and spectacle, she represents one thing quieter and way more enduring.
Self-discipline with out drama. Ambition with out conceitedness. Confidence with out demonstration. None of this occurs in isolation. Surekha is aware of what it means to endure uncertainty. She is aware of what it means to chase excellence in a sport that doesn’t at all times obtain consideration. She is aware of the emotional price of expectation, the loneliness of underperformance, the endurance required to maintain exhibiting up. However by means of all of it, the factor she values most is remarkably human: the reassurance that any person will nonetheless be there when the competitors ends.
Sluggish and regular
“It’s a must to consider in your self, and it’s a must to have a very good help system, be it mentally or financially, to return into sports activities. If one has a robust familial help system, they’re completely satisfied once you’re profitable. However, extra importantly, they’ll be wonderful for those who aren’t too.”
Surekha has made the squad for the 2026 Asian Games in Japan. The drill stays the identical. What is going to change are the eyeballs and the strengthening of the “she is going to convey house one thing” perception.
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“I’ve been listening to individuals saying that we all know that you’ll not come empty-handed. We for certain know that you’ll get one thing or the opposite, at the very least a medal, one medal from a match. I’m actually lucky that individuals assume that means, that they belief, it doesn’t matter what, that I’ll convey again one thing. It pushes me to place in the identical work each day and guarantee I don’t return with any regrets about not giving my greatest.”
By the point the 2028 Los Angeles Video games arrive, the highlight round Surekha will solely develop brighter. India will have a look at her and see the opportunity of historical past ready to occur.
She’s going to in all probability stroll into that Olympic area the identical means she has walked into each different match in her life: with out permitting the enormity of the second to swallow her. As a result of lengthy earlier than the Olympics entered her sport, Surekha had already mastered one thing far harder: separating who she is from what she wins.
