Will give cash award to Papa, says ace archer Deepika

NEW DELHI - Commonwealth Games gold medallist archer Deepika Kumari says she is too young to decide on how to spend the cash awards of Rs.30 lakh and would rather give the money to her parents.

“I may have won the gold so early in my career, but I am still not old enough to decide on how I will spend the prize money. I will give it to my parents and they will decide what to do with it. Though I would tell them to buy new equipements for me,” the 17-year-old Jharkhand archer told IANS.

The sports ministry earlier announced a cash prize of Rs.20 lakh for winning the gold in the Oct 3-14 Games. Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda has also declared an award of Rs.10 lakh for her performance.

Deepika, who came into limelight after winning the cadet world championship at Ogden last year, said she rates the Commonwealth gold equivalent to her feat in the world title.

“I rate the two victories at par. Winning a medal here in my home country is something that I always desired for. I am glad that I was able to accomplish that after beating an Olympic bronze medallist in the final,” she said. She crushed Alison Willimson 6-0 in the gold medal match of individual recurve at the Yamuna Sports Complex Sunday.

World No.12 Deepika attributed her success to the eight hours a day training for the last two years, and a day after winning the gold in Delhi she is aiming for a similar result in the much tougher Asian Games in November.

“It is never easy for any athlete to win medals. I trained as hard as I could for the home event. We all head back to Kolkata now and start training for the Asian Games. The competition will be a lot tougher there since world-class archers from China, Japan and Korea will also be competing,” said Deepika.