Limba Ram was unaware of the fact that archery was a competitive sport until an uncle told him about a selection trial in a nearby village.
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What started as a fluke and by chance, Limba Ram’s journey in archery has been extremely noteworthy. Ram started his archery journey and became synonymous with the sport in the 90s.
Coming from the village of Saradeet, Limba Ram was one of the five siblings. His family would often struggle to make ends meet. And Ram would find work on the farms or make bamboo bows and arrows to play with his friends. As he grew older, the quality of the bow and arrow improved. He made it to the local competitions, or just shot down birds or won some food items.
Ram was unaware of the fact that archery was a competitive sport until an uncle told him about a selection trial in a nearby village. Ram aced that trial and impressed the selectors in the second round trials in Chittor. Subsequently, he was inducted in Sports Authority of India’s newly launched Special Area Games Scheme in 1987 along with Shyam Lal, Dhulchand Damor, Ved Singh. The trio eventually moved to Delhi to train under Russian coach Alexander Nicolai, R S Sodhi, and Suman Das.
“R S Sodhi sir would tell me that I was made for this sport. That gave me a lot of confidence,” Ram told a radio channel a few years ago.
“When we got to Delhi, they gave us two bows and an arrow to be used by five players. Four months later, we got imported arrows and two people had to share one,” he added.
Sodhi was right about Ram’s talent. Just months after joining the camp, Ram won the junior nationals in Bangalore and was later selected in the India squad for the 1988 Seoul Olympics at the age of 16.
Ram learned a lot about discipline and strength training from the South Koreans. However, it was not one of the best Games that India has. However, he was determined to defeat the world’s best archers one day.
Not only did he fulfill his dream a year later, but also won the Asian Championship gold for the country and clinched the silver at an individual event. The same year, Ram reached the quarterfinals of the World Archery Championships.
The legend of Limba Ram only kept growing. He helped the Indian team finish fourth in the 1990 Asian Games and equaled the 30m world record in 1992 at the Asian Championship.
Ram was in such form in 1992 Barcelona Olympics that the team thought they would indeed be able to end the medal drought in the quadrennial event.
However, Ram admitted in interviews that he could see his form suffer because of the pressure ahead of the tournament. “I was in a deep state of meditation before the event. Archery is such a mental sport and it is vital to find inner calm. If the mind wanders even slightly, you won’t fire the arrow well. I was summoned to meet the officials even as I was meditating. They told me ‘we will carry you on our shoulders and take you to India with the medal around your neck’. I was angry and irritated that I was disturbed. I came back to my room but could not focus again.”
Four years later, Ram made it to his third straight Olympics. But he suffered a shoulder injury in the run-up to the Games while playing football, and that could possibly be the time when his downfall started.
He may no longer be the star of Indian archery but there is no doubt that he will always hold a prominent position in archery’s Hall of Fame
