School games federation

Khelo India Youth Games: Last month, Shubham Kumar made an arduous 30-hour train journey in the general compartment from his hometown of Arrah in Bihar to Nadiad in Gujarat for the School Games Federation of India’s National archery competition. But despite the hardship he went on to win the team bronze there.

Coming into the 6th Khelo India Youth Games, Shubham had neither faced this level of competition nor witnessed such large-scale arrangements earlier. But nothing deterred him from winning only the second gold medal of the Games for Bihar, in the boys' recurve category.

The performance may have surprised many at the archery range on a hot, windy afternoon at the Nehru Park Sports Complex in Chennai, but not Shubham himself.