Deepika or MS?

Popular Indian archer Deepika Kumari is more comfortable talking about herself and archery than about other Indian sports stars.

Deepika, a former world number one, is currently ranked fifth in the world in women's recurve bow.  She finished fifth (667 points) in qualification round of her pet event yesterday to enter the elimination round with the hope of outshining Korean archers to win her first-ever gold medal in the Asian Archery Championships.

Though she had initially struggled in archery, everything changed after she won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. She was the second Indian to win the title after Palton Hansda won Junior World Championship at Mérida (Mexico) in 2006 in the compound individual.

“Winning the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games was the turning point of my career even though the start of my archery career was difficult. Afterwards I got facilities professionally and financially and family members also started to inspire me.  Archery started to get more popularity in India too,” said Deepka.

The 22-year-old is from Jharkhand, a place famous for cricketing superstar Mahendra Singh (MS) Dhoni. So the obvious question was whether she was proud of being from the same city as such a superstar. Deepika's reply was pretty bold.

“It is not that I live in Dhoni's town rather I live in my town but it is pleasing that both of us live in the same town and we are both trying to do something good for the nation,” said Deepika, who was in 2014 conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award and was given the Padma Shri award in 2016.