Abhishek Thaware, India’s first teeth archer aims for the target and shoots with his teeth.Yes, you heard it right! Abhishek lost his right arm to polio when he was a year old but that didn’t obviate him from taking an interest in sports and he started taking part in athletics at state and national levels when he was in 8th standard. Abhishek won several medals in long distance running under the regular category.
Mr. Rajendra Khandal who ran a sporting club, trained him for cross country running and Abhishek, became a para athlete. Unfortunately, nine years later he was struck with a knee injury and it kept him from running but he still ran the relay at the state level and won a bronze medal. But after this, his knee injury became severe and it did not allow him to run again. But, Destiny had a different plan for him!
His cousin Sandeep Gawai was an archer and motivated him to learn archery. Sandeep suggested Abhishek should use his teeth, and it worked. But, Abhishek comes from a lower middle class family, so finances were a constraint, due to which he had to wait for 2 years to pursue his dreams. Finally in 2014 his mother mortgaged her jewelry and he bought a second hand archery set.
Mr. Chandrakanth Ilag a constable at the Maharashtra police taught archery to kids, free of cost saw the potential and the dedication Abhishek had towards his sport and offered to train him, which helped him to improve his skills and soon became the first teeth archer.
On July 2015, Abhishek Sunil Thaware excelled in para archery World Championship trials conducted by the Archery Association of India (AII.) He then won a silver medal at the All India Archery meet for the disabled in Baroda in August 2015. On January 2016 his scored 637 out of 720 points in Nagpur varsity’s inter college meet. He also secured 69th position among 200 participants at the inter university meet in Patiala.
In an interview with The Better India he added firmly stating,“There are no polio issues in our country. I am so thankful for that.We never count how much the nation does for us. I want to repay at least a bit. I want to represent my country at the international level and Ii will do anything for that.”
