World champs Aditi and Deotale's journey started from same sugarcane farmland

Pravin Sawant, a police constable in Satara in Maharashtra, now hopes his archery training academy, built on one-acre sugarcane farmland, will finally get due recognition, after producing India's two world champions Aditi Swami and Ojas Deotale.

Both Aditi and Deotale trained under Sawant at the Drushti Academy in Satara's Wadhe Phata area before becoming world champions.

Hailing from Satara, Aditi on Saturday became the youngest senior world champion at 17 when she secured India's first-ever individual title at the World Archery Championships with compound women's gold in Berlin.

Later in the day, Ojas Deotale also became the world champion when he bagged the compound men's title with a perfect score of 150.

Aditi learnt the sport under Sawant. Nagpur's Deotale honed his skills after joining Sawant's academy exactly a year ago.

"Aditi was really unimpressive, an emaciated 10-year-old when she came to the Stadium where I used to train. But her stubbornness caught my eyes and the journey began," Sawant recalled, in a conversation with PTI.

"She was really hardworking, would not take any break after a competition and train here for hours. I knew she is a champion in the making."

Nagpur's Deotale heard about Sawant's newly-launched academy from his friend who trained there and came under the coach's wings in 2022.

"His shooting was unorthodox but impactful. I just had to motivate him and tune him mentally. He did the rest," he said about Deotale.

The journey to become an archery coach has come with a lot of failures and hardships for Sawant, who is now an NIS certificate holder.

The 32-year-old had won a silver medal at the school Nationals in Jharkhand but he failed to make it big and worked as a part-time ward boy at a private hospital to make ends meet from 2009-11.

In the day time, he did his hospital duty and in the evening he would practice archery for long hours at the stadium.

Seeing his passion for the sport, Manabendra Kadam, a medicine shop owner at the same hospital, became curious about him.

"I was coaching kids as well as doing my shooting to take part in tournaments. Aditi had joined by then and started winning too," said Sawant.

"But lack of a proper facility was a hinderance as I used to teach them at the stadium and then at another makeshift facility."

Kadam then came to Sawant's rescue and decided to gift him one-acre farmland where he used to grow sugarcane.

But getting a land was not enough, Sawant needed money to build walls, give the land a shape.

His wife and mother came to his rescue and agreed to mortgage their jewellery.

"I got Rs 2 lakh in exchange of the jewelleries, which are still mortgaged to a bank. Parents too chip in with their contributions and Drushti Academy came on it own," he recalled.

"Last year we have installed floodlights and there is accommodation facilities for about 15 people. I mostly stay here with the kids, and it helps in training," he said.

But the facilities are still lacking.

"We still don't have lack proper equipment. I've written to the Zila Parishad, but the files have not moved till now.

"But I'm sure people will take notice of the archery academy now after their (Aditi and Deotale's) success and hoping it would be given the status of a centre."