Pravin Jadhav
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A brief biography
As in 2021 June
Hindol Basu, July 22, 2021: The Times of India
For most of his life, archer Pravin Jadhav lived in a shack near a drain in the droughtprone Sarade village in Maharashtra’s Satara district. His father, Ramesh, was a daily wage labourer at a construction site and his mother used to be a farm help. There was a constant struggle to provide the family two full meals a day.
“Our condition was really bad then. We lived in a hut. We didn’t have electricity and there was barely any money,” recollects the 25-year-old, who will be representing India at the Tokyo Olympics. Jadhav will team up with Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai in the men’s recurve team and also compete in the individual segment.
There came a time in his life when he almost joined his father as a daily wage labourer. “Like most people in Sarade, I almost joined my father as a daily wage labourer,” recalls the archer. But then destiny had something different written for him. Pravin used to study at the Zilla Parishad School in Sarade. His sports teacher Vikas Bhujbal knew about his family’s financial condition and urged Pravin to get into athletics so that he could earn some money. “Bhujbal sir told me to start running and take part in competitions and I started running 400 and 800 metres.” But being severely undernourished made running difficult for Jadhav— he once fainted while warming up. Bhujbal then began providing for diet and other expenses for Pravin so that he could compete. With a better diet, Jadhav tasted success at taluka and district level. This earned him a selection for Maharashtra government’s Krida Prabodhini scheme, which provides free coaching, education and lodging to athletes from rural areas at residential academies.
Archery came his way by accident at the hostel in Ahmednagar when he was selected for the sport during a drill when he threw 10 out of 10 balls in a ring from a 10-metre distance. “Since my body was a little on the weaker side, I was asked to try out with archery and I have continued with it since then,” he says. Thereafter, Jadhav was stationed at Krida Prabodhini in Amravati, Vidarbha, sharpening his archery skills. Initially, he used a traditional bamboo bow for a year.
Pravin struggled with the weight of a recurve bow and used to have pain in his shoulders while firing the arrow. Despite being weak physically, a determined Pravin kept at it. “I was aware that I would have to work as a labourer if I didn’t succeed (in archery), which is why I continued working hard,” he said.
The next trial for Jadhav came when his stint at the Krida Prabodhini was coming to an end and he had to buy his own archery equipment so that he could continue his journey. An archery kit costs around Rs 3 lakh and he didn’t have the finances. “The government helped me out.”
Jadhav’s financial situation has improved a bit, especially after he joined the Indian Army in 2017 on sports quota. He now trains at the Army Sports institute in Pune.
