Deepika Has Played Most Part In My First Gold Medal: Atanu Das Credits Wife On Winning

Das converted his maiden World Cup medal into gold on April 25, the final day of the competition. He said that his wife's inspiring words whom he married less than a year ago, made him achieve the feat.

Das credited the former world number one archer by saying, "She (Deepika) deserves most of the credit for my transformation," to the PTI from Guatemala City after he defeated Spaniard Daniel Castro in the men's final.

Deepika also won her first individual gold after three years, and a bar of team gold for the first time since 2014. However, it was Das who faced the real turnaround as he previously struggled to get an individual medal at the highest level since making his debut in 2008.

"Seeing her perform best at the highest level, sometimes, I would get mentally depressed to cope up." He added that he would keep working hard and ask himself "when would my turn come?".

This is his first victory after losing the bronze play-off to Kim Woojin in Antalya World Cup in 2016.

Das admitted to having felt bad about the fact that he was not able to match his wife's standards till now. He said that his wife would get really angry the moment she would see him upset. "She would always say 'mera time pehle aaya hai, tera baad mein ayega" he said.

"I would always admire how she's able to accomplish so much from such a young age. What was her mental state, how did she equip. All those enigmas would fill in my mind," Das said regarding Deepika who won the Commonwealth Games gold at the young age of 15.

Deepika Kumari And Atanu Das On Their Relationship

The archer couple who has known each other for about 12 years shared that their relationship started at the 2017 World Championships in Mexico City in which the Indian recurve team faced a heavy defeat.

"We went shopping together and bonded well. Nobody proposed as such, it was just a mutual feeling and happened during our stint in Mexico City. We started thinking about when we will be able to win again and we started planning our shooting." Das said.

The couple got married last year. Since the Tokyo Olympics got postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple got the scope to shift their focus from the Games for a while.