Chikitha Taniparthi becomes India's first female compound junior World Champion

Chikitha Taniparthi becomes India's first-ever female Individual Compound Junior World Champion with a brilliant performance at the World Youth Championships 2025 in Winnipeg, Canada, on Saturday.

The 20-year-old defeated Korea's Yerin Park in the final (142-136) to win the U21 women's individual gold medal, India's first across all individual events in the current edition of the Championships.

Earlier, she had defeated her fellow compatriot and the top seed Parneet Kaur to reach the semis, and then, with a dominating 142-133 win over Spain's Paula Diaz, she confirmed her spot in the finals.

Two silvers in compound U18 category

India narrowly missed out on a compound double as Prithika Pradeep clinched silver in the U18 women's individual event, falling to Savannah O'Donnohue of the USA in the final, 140-143.

Meanwhile, India had no medals in the compound men's individual events, with none of the archers advancing to the U21 semi-finals and Yogesh Joshi placing fourth in the U18 category, just shy of a podium finish.

However, Yogesh, partnering with Prithika, won the mixed team compound U18 silver medal after falling short by just 1 point against the American pair in the high-scoring final, 149-150.

With this, India ended the compound competition with five medals across both U18 and U21 categories, having 3 gold and 2 bronze Medals.

There will be a couple of medal opportunities in the recurve category on Sunday, where Sharvari Shende will be in action in the U18 women's semifinals, and the U18 mixed team will fight for a bronze medal.