Tarundeep Rai

Some Lesser Known Facts About Tarundeep Rai

• Tarundeep Rai is an Indian Archer since 2003 and one of the most famous sportspersons hailing from the Northeastern region.

• He was born in a sports-oriented family. His father was a professional photographer. He is the cousin of Baichung Bhutia, a well-known face in Indian football.

• He has represented India in two Olympic games- Athens 2004, where the team finished at 11th place, and London 2012, where his team finished at 12th place. The only game that he had missed was Beijing 2008 due to a nagging shoulder injury.

• He made his international debut at the age of 19 in the Asian Archery Championship 2003. Since then, he has been consistently performing and bringing medals for India.

• He won his maiden Gold medal at the Asian Grand Prix Bangkok in 2004. Later on, he won the bronze in the men’s recurve team event at the Asian Archery Championship in the following year.

• In 2005, Rai won the silver medal in recurve men team event at the World Archery Championship, where he lost to Won Jong Choi by 106-112 in the semis. He also won a bronze medal at recurve individual event at the Asian Archery Grand Prix in Jakarta.

• At the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, India came to the limelight in Archery when Tarundeep Rai bagged the Bronze medal in the men’s recurve team event along with Viswash, Jayanta Talukdar, and Mangal Singh.

• But it was not all that good in Tarundeep’s life when he suffered from injuries that made him shoot with the wrong hand. He recalls that event by saying,
  

  Those few years when I had to grapple with the shoulder injury taught me everything in life. I even tried shooting left-handed but it did not help. I was taking painkillers but in vain. The year 2008 and almost half of 2009 were forgettable.”

• Injury at such a young age of 24 was a huge setback for him. But he didn’t give up when during the second half of 2009, he won the Asian Grand Prix at Tehran.
  

• The following year saw the most fruitful year in his life when he won four medals at the prestigious world events. Not only this, but he also won men recurve team gold at 2nd Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok in March 2009, then silver medal in the same event at the Archery World Cup at Porec, Croatia.

• He became the first-ever Indian Archer to bag a silver medal at the 16th Asian Games in November 2010 at Yangon, Myanmar.

• As time went by, he showed no signs of slowing down. He was dominant at international tournaments over the past decade. His silver medal at the 2019 World Championship in s-Hertogenbosch and bronze medal at the 2019 Asian Archery championship in Bangkok itself denotes that the veteran has a lot to offer in the coming future.

• He grabbed the quota for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 to be held in 2021. As the COVID pandemic hit the entire nation, he was also under lockdown. Meanwhile, he chose to remain in Pune’s Army Sports Institute with an aspiring Archer Pravin Jadhav and get himself trained for the last Olympics of his career.
  

• He also serves in an Indian Army on the rank of Subedar.