The Archer Who Learned to Breathe Through Pressure, Simranjeet Kaur’s Quiet Rise in Indian Recurve
At elite level sport, progress is often narrated through medals, rankings, and podium finishes. But in a discipline like recurve archery where competition is measured in millimetres and outcomes hinge on composure rather than physical dominance development is less visible. It happens internally, over years of repetition, failure, recalibration and eventually, acceptance.
For Simranjeet Kaur, India’s emerging recurve archer from Abohar, Punjab, the journey into the upper tier of Indian archery has been less about dramatic breakthroughs and more about incremental understanding of the sport, of pressure, and most importantly, of herself.
It is perhaps telling that when asked about her earliest days in sport, archery was not even her first choice.
“I was into lawn tennis. I also did taekwondo for a few years. And I also managed to go for table tennis as well,” she recalls.
Archery entered the picture not through fascination but through suggestion from her father, a school teacher who believed the sport’s individualistic nature would reward effort more directly than team disciplines.
“He told me that archery is an event where if you do hard work by yourself, then the probability of winning the medal is more than other events,” she says.
Even then, the decision did not translate into instant affinity. “When I started archery, I did not really like it. it’s a very complicated kind of event and you need a certain type of maturity physical as well as mental.”
That maturity would take years to develop.
Built from Scratch in Abohar
Long before national camps and structured high-performance environments, Simranjeet’s introduction to archery unfolded in a setting that mirrored many grassroots Indian sporting stories limited infrastructure offset by parental ingenuity. In Abohar, where access to formal facilities was scarce, her father constructed makeshift functional equipment to ensure continuity of training. One such innovation remains etched in her memory.
“When I bought my first bow, I was so weak that I was not able to draw even the nicest poundage. So out of scratch, he made a pulley and assembled weights in the position of the bow so that I could practice drawing on it.”
The apparatus allowed her to simulate resistance and gradually build the strength required to draw a competitive recurve bow an essential requirement in a discipline that demands sustained muscular engagement across multiple training cycles daily. Archery’s physical demands are frequently misunderstood outside the sport. Contrary to popular perception, the act of “standing and shooting” is bio mechanically taxing, especially across a standard day’s training volume.
“We need stamina because we have to shoot arrows every day. I think for a day, we walk around 15 km because of the arrow shooting and then we go for taking it.”
Such routines shaped not just physical endurance, but also psychological tolerance for monotony a defining trait in elite-level recurve.
The Olympic Decision: Why Recurve?
For many young archers entering the sport, the compound discipline with its mechanical let-off and shorter competition distance presents a more accessible learning curve. Simranjeet, however, chose recurve early on.
The rationale was straightforward.
“At that time, if you ask what is your goal, he will directly tell you that he wants to win an Olympic medal. compound was never part of Olympic Games. So that made my choice really very clear.”
The distinction between the two formats is critical. While compound bows employ a cam system that reduces holding weight at full draw, recurve bows require athletes to maintain full poundage throughout shot execution.
“The recurve bow is supposed to be controlled by the human muscles. from the starting to the ending execution of the shot, it is on the athlete’s muscles.”
This manual demand amplifies the role of neuromuscular control and mental steadiness especially in knockout scenarios where margins of error narrow significantly.
Antalya: Breathing Through the Moment
The 2025 Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya marked a significant reference point in Simranjeet’s competitive trajectory. As outlined in the background documentation, she was the sole Indian recurve archer to reach the quarter-finals at the event, even as experienced names exited earlier rounds. Her match against Olympic champion An San was particularly instructive not for its outcome, but for what it revealed about her evolving approach to pressure.
Reflecting on high-stakes competition, Simranjeet emphasises preparation over opponent perception.
“I wasn’t expressing the same situation again and again in my mind. in that match, I was able to breathe through everything. And it was really a fun match.”
This framing signals a shift from reactive to proactive mental engagement a transition she credits partly to structured support systems introduced in recent years.
High Performance and the Reliance Foundation Support
By 2022, despite sustained training volume, Simranjeet’s results had plateaued at the international level. According to the background report, this phase prompted a comprehensive high-performance audit conducted in collaboration with the Reliance Foundation in Mumbai.
The intervention targeted physiological conditioning, nutritional discipline & Cognitive training. One of the most tangible changes involved body composition optimisation, with a reduction in body fat from 35% to 27% post-2023. Equally impactful, however, was the integrated team environment she encountered.
“Since the time I have been part of Reliance Foundation. my physios, my psychologists, my nutritionists they see my victory as their victory and my defeat as their defeat.”
In a sport where performance volatility often stems from cognitive fatigue rather than technical limitation, this support structure proved critical. Working with sports psychologists, Simranjeet developed strategies to “keep the mind indulged” throughout a match preventing the lapses in focus that typically surface in deciding sets.
Competition Within the Camp
Domestically, Simranjeet’s progression has unfolded alongside established names such as Deepika Kumari a dynamic she approaches through a performance-centric lens.
“My mantra is whenever I play against a good archer. it is never the good archer who is against you. It is your fight with yourself.”
Rather than framing matchups as adversarial, she focuses on replicating training outputs under competition conditions.
“If you keep the capability of hitting 3-10s and you are not able to hit 3-10s in the tournament, then you lost to yourself.”
Such internal bench marking has helped mitigate comparative pressure particularly in selection trials where margins between top-ranked archers are frequently negligible.
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The effectiveness of her high-performance transition was validated in 2023.
Simranjeet was part of the Indian women’s recurve team that secured bronze at the Archery World Cup Stage 4 in Paris and later ended India’s 13-year Asian Games medal drought with another bronze in Hangzhou. These results positioned her firmly within India’s Olympic pathway programmes, including the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS).
Subsequent performances at the Asia Cup Baghdad 2024 where she contributed to team and mixed recurve gold medals further consolidated her standing within the national hierarchy.
Recent regulatory changes in international archery, including the introduction of an 11-point inner ring and reduction of qualification arrows from 72 to 60, have tightened competitive margins significantly. For Indian archers historically adept at grouping within the 9-10 range but less consistent in dead-centre hits, these developments necessitate technical recalibration.
Simranjeet’s near-win in Antalya where an Olympic champion’s 11 ended the shoot-off exemplifies the precision now required at elite level. Yet if her journey thus far indicates anything, it is that adaptation, rather than acceleration, defines sustainable progress in recurve.
From a makeshift pulley in Abohar to quarter-finals on the World Cup circuit, her trajectory underscores a broader shift within Indian archery where performance is increasingly engineered through science, psychology, and system support rather than instinct alone.
And for an athlete who once struggled to draw her first bowstring, the next arrow may yet carry Olympic consequence.
