Aditi Gopichand scripts history, gives India its maiden individual gold medal at World Archery Championships

India's teenage archer Aditi Gopichand Swami scripted history at the ongoing World Archery Championships in Berlin as she became the youngest-ever world champion and helped India achieve its first-ever individual gold in the history of the tournament with a compound women's gold.

The young Indian prodigy defeated Mexico's Andrea Becerra 149-147 in the summit clash to claim glory. The individual gold helped her bag the tag of a 'double world champion', having already won a compound women's team gold medal on Friday, August 4.

The year 2023 is turning out to be a golden one for the 17-year-old, having already achieved the glory of becoming a double youth world champion after clinching an individual and a team gold at the World Archery Youth Championships in Limerick in July.

On her way to glory, Aditi overcame a stern challenge in the form of Netherlands' Sanne De Laat in a nerve-wracking quarterfinal and then came up trumps against her compatriot Jyothi Surekha Vennam in the semifinals of the event. Jyothi was also badly looking for a change of fortunes and was chasing gold, having secured a bronze in the year 2019 and silver in 2021 but Aditi was just too good for her on the day.

Aditi nailed bull's eye consistently in the finals, with four consecutive ends of 30 - a stat that shows how calm she was during the title finish.

An elated Aditi spoke to Worldarchery.sport and mentioned that she has her sight set on the forthcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou. She wants to bring laurels to the country by setting the stage alight at the Asian Games as well.

She also spoke about her victory and added that she wanted the national anthem to be played and was focused on her rhythm.

"I am very proud, I wanted to hear the 52 seconds of the national anthem to be played at the World Championships. I was focusing on my rhythm, on my shot, and therefore I could perform," said Aditi.

"This is just the start. We have the Asian Games coming up, I want to win gold for the country and continue to win team gold for the country.

"It is really great that at 17 I could become the world champion. I want to thank all my supporters and everyone in India who helped me become the world champion," added Aditi.