Rishabh Yadav's 2025 Breakthrough: Small Steps Towards Olympic Archery Glory

The 23-year-old archer had an incredible 2025, a breakthrough year for him, which included gold and silver medals in the men's compound and team categories at the World Archery Championships, a world record in mixed team compound archery alongside Jyothi Surekha Vennam at the Archery World Cup stage 4 at Madrid and a career-high world rank of number four in men's compound archery.

Speaking to ANI, he said, "During the first stage at Florida, winning a gold (in mixed team compound), we realised that India has a missing piece, an Olympic medal in archery. It was a strong start for us. Then medals came in other stages as well. Later came the world championships. It is the biggest stage. The countries which do not feature in the World Cups also come and compete there. Finishing on the podium in the world championships was a goal (finished with the men's team compound gold and mixed team compound silver with Jyothi). Then in the stage four of the World Cup archery at Madrid, we were able to produce a strong finish. So this is all continuously building towards the Olympic goal, I would say these are small steps."

On his goals for this year and the support from the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) in Karnataka, he spoke of working for the Asian Games this year and the facilities provided at the facility in Ballari.

"So this year, there are the Asian Games, which is a major event. We are there for that, because our world championships are held once every two years. In IIS, the strength and conditioning facilities, all the support is possible within campus. I just have to move out of my hostel. There is a complete high-performance centre, which has nutrition, sports, science, physiological support, doctors, staff, everything is there to look after me," he said.

"So there are some insights, once an athlete is there, to stay consistent, they are helping me to do that. They are helping me maintain our place on top, making strategies for the future, for the 2028 Olympics, how to keep it consistent, plus how to progress in the future, all is being done. We are working on using the minimum energy to get the best results," he added.

Rishabh recalled that archery was something he was encouraged to do in school by a friend of his, and he was a footballer at one point. Playing an individual sport, being able to see the results of his hard work, drove him towards archery.

"Then I also met ace archer Abhishek Verma, and I looked upto him, wanting to be like him. We have played together and against each other. It has been a decade-long journey. This thrill, there is still a lot more to achieve. These two things are keeping me going. I am enjoying my journey," he added.

Speaking on traits to pick up from some of the best archery-playing nations worldwide, Rishabh stressed the need to keep track of positive trends and practices globally instead of focusing on just one or two great teams.

"Every country has good and bad qualities in a sport, and we should look at the good qualities of every country in the sport and work on that collectively, rather than focusing on one or two countries that are doing well blindly. If we focus on one country doing something great, we could be unaware of some good practices in other countries. So we should follow things globally. The Indian archery is growing, and the world is looking at us," he added.

He also spoke on how the inaugural edition of the Archery Premier League (APL) has impacted the Indian archery ecosystem for the better. He represented the franchise Chola Chiefs.

"This was a very good one (APL). In my team, we had a five-time Olympic medalist (Brady Ellison). So we got to see how he sees things, the way he drives his team during certain situations. When you play the competition with such players for 10 days, and every day they come up with different strategies and bring their experience, a young, budding archer can learn a lot from them. Besides the archers in the Indian team, there were other national-level archers picked for the league as well," he said.

"Now we see in these year trials, we see more juniors coming up after this exposure and chance to share the stage with overseas talent. It is a different feeling. Our federation is working hard to make sure that the league has a particular date and is added in World Archery calendar. Globally, many athletes thought this was impossible, but now they are trying to better their world ranking to play in this league. The AFL has made archery a sensation globally and it has strengthened our grassroots by making players from small towns share the stage with the big players. It has been a healthy environment," he added.

On excitement within the Indian camp after some encouraging compound archery performances ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics 2028, Rishabh said that the records are a benchmark of a player's execution.

"Every record is a benchmark that whatever you are practising is being executed well in the competition. Our performances are a reflection of our preparations. There are some small steps now, the Asian Games, the World Championships next year. Till then, all the teams will be fully preparing for the Olympics. So these are the small steps I am looking at before the Olympics, which we have to conquer and we are working towards. Olympics is the main game, once you build that confidence, that staircase (through Asian Games, World Championships etc), it would not be difficult to chase that Olympic dream," he signed off.

- ANI