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| Born | 4 September 2001 Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Military career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Branch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Subedar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Archery | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event | Recurve | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Dhiraj Bommadevara (born 4 September 2001) is an Indian recurve archer. [1] Dhiraj competed at the 2024 Olympics, where he narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth in the recurve mixed team event. [2]
Dhiraj is from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. His father Bommadevara Shravan Kumar used to be a technical official of the Archery Association of India. He studied at the SRR and CVR Government Degree College, Vijayawada. [3] His archery career began at the Volga Archery Academy in Vijayawada in 2006. He joined the Indian Army in 2021 as a Havaldar, after training at the ASI in Pune for four years. [3] [4] He is backed by the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ). [4]
Dhiraj, alongside Parth Salunkhe and Aditya Choudhary had secured a gold medal in the 2021 World Archery Youth Championships, beating Spain 5-3 in the finals.
Dhiraj was selected to represent India at the 2022 Asian Games at Hangzhou, China. [5] He took part in the Indian Men's recurve team along with Atanu Das and Tushar Shelke and won the silver medal at the 2022 Asian Games. [6] [7] [8] They lost the final to Republic of Korea. [9] [10]
Later in 2023, he represented India at the World Championships in Berlin, Germany in the Men's team and individual events, where he finished 2nd in the Ranking stages. [11] [12] In the same year, he also took part in the Men's team and Men's individual events at the World Cup at Antalya, Turkey (where he secured an individual bronze medal) [11] and in the Men's team, Men's individual and Mixed team events at the World Cups in Paris and Shanghai. [11] He won a bronze medal in the Men's team at the World Cup Stage 3 at Medellin, Colombia. [11] [13] [14] In September 2023, he took part in the World Cup Finals at Hermosillo [15] beating 5-time Olympic Champion Kim Woo-jin (archer) and finishing 4th overall.
Dhiraj made his maiden Olympic appearance at the 2024 Summer Olympics. After the ranking round, Dhiraj finished 4th (With a score of 681), making this one of the best rankings by an Indian archer in the Olympic Games. However, he lost 5-5+ (10-10+) to Canada's Eric Peters in a closely fought Men's Individual 1/16 Elimination Round. Dhiraj advanced to the quarterfinals in the Men's Team, along with Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai. However, the team lost to Turkey's team 2-6. Dhiraj scripted history, with Ankita Bhakat by competing in India's first-ever Olympic medal match in archery in the Mixed Team Bronze Medal Match but lost 2-6 to the USA featuring Brady Ellison and Casey Kaufhold. [16] [17] [18]
During the 2025 Asian Archery Championships, Dhiraj secured a historic Gold Medal, defeating fellow compatriot Rahul Pawariya by a score of 6-2, making him the first ever Male Recurve champion from India.