Mumbai, Aug. 30 -- For their sheer dominance in the event that has seen their women's team sweep every gold at the Olympics since 1988, South Korea carry an aura of invincibility in recurve archery. Sharvari Shende, India's U-18 world youth individual recurve champion, has a rather simplistic thought around that. "It's not like in every set they will hit 10-10-10," the 16-year-old said. "Even they will give you a chance at some point. You just have to take it." Much like Sharvari did at the World Youth Championships in Winnipeg, Canada last Sunday. The Indian got the better of not just one, but two Koreans along her way to gold - first defeating Kim Minjeong 7-3 in the semi-final and then keeping her composure in a 6-5 shootoff win against third seeded Kim Yewon. Recurve powerhouses Korea lost both the U-18 individual finals, and a soft-spoken teen from Pune was responsible for one of them. "Koreans are at the top in our event. But then I feel, why should they always come first? Even we work equally hard," Sharvari told HT. "My mindset was that no matter who comes up against me, be it a Korean or from any country, I had to shoot my absolute best. And that is what I did." Far from being intimidated by the thought of running into a Korean at the business end of the competition, she relished the challenge. "I wasn't intimidated," Sharvari said. "More than the ranking rounds, it's in the elimination rounds that you have to show your confidence." As per World Archery, Sharvari is the third Indian woman to become the U-18 recurve world champion after Deepika Kumari (2011) and Komalika Bari (2021). "My thinking before the event was: I will become the world champion because I am the best. But after the shootoff, for a moment I couldn't believe that I had actually become the world champion," she said. Sharvari's path to even making it to the global youth event wasn't without challenges. Since picking up the sport in school and progressing through age-group domestic competitions, the Pune girl has been training with coach Kunal Taware at the Swarajya Archery Academy. Their training ground was shut almost a year back, forcing Taware and Sharvari to look for makeshift alternatives. Taware's friend gave them some space in a ground elsewhere in the city. "Even after losing our long-time base, she managed to do well in the back-to-back trials for the youth and senior events (in May-June)," Taware said. Taware, who was her school's archery coach, spotted her talent there. Once she got selected for the U-17 junior nationals at age 12, he spoke to her doctor parents about getting her focussed full-time on the sport. The challenge according to Taware will be to translate her promise from the youth level (where the target distance is 60m) to the senior level (70m). Sharvari is already getting a taste of that, having been part of the senior team at the Madrid World Cup last month. "This youth medal will give me a lot of belief going ahead," she said....