HYDERABAD: For someone who has won six World Cup medals, 22-year-old archer Vennam Jyothi Surekha is modesty personified despite making history of sorts by qualifying last weekend in Berlin for the World Cup Finals this September in compound mixed event.
“I think I still have to be much better in shooting in windy conditions,” said the soft-spoken champion archer from Vijayawada.
On making it to the World Cup Finals, Surekha confessed that she was not expecting it to happen. “We (she and Abhishek Verma) just wanted to be consistent and are glad we pulled it off,” said Surekha in an exclusive chat with The Hindu on her return from Berlin on Tuesday.
She won a silver in team event (compound) with Trisha Deb, Muskan Kirar and then a bronze in mixed event with Abhishek.
“The fact that I made it to the Finals for the first time is really special and I deem it a great honour to compete with the top eight teams in the Worlds,” she said, adding that the conditions and the standard of competition were quite demanding in Berlin.
“Making it to the Finals before next month’s Asian Games is a huge morale-booster. Mixed team is being introduced in the Asiad for the first time and I am glad that I could make it,” she said.
“It will be a great experience to compete in the Asiad again after having won a bronze in the team event last time. I don’t think there will be pressure on me because of the kind of expectations. This is one factor which affects any athlete if he or she thinks too much about it. I just want to focus on how to keep improving in different conditions.”
Surekha said: “Every effort will be made during the Asiad preparatory camp in Sonepat to finetune whatever rough edges you feel you have as the biggest and immediate goal for me is to win an Asiad medal.”
Surekha puts winning medals for the country ahead of individual goals. “I never think how many medals I won at a World Cup. The first target is to bring laurels to the country. Individuals come next in my perspective,” was her response when reminded that after Deepika Kumari (eight medals in 2011) she has the best haul for an Indian woman archer in a World Cup.
