Champion Deepika Kumari in tears due to media harassment

New Delhi, Aug 27: The competition among TV journalists to get an exclusive interview brought India's champion woman archer Deepika Kumari to tears here on Tuesday, according to a report. She was "harassed" for one-on-one interviews by several reporters.

19-year-old Deepika and two of her team-mates arrived here from Poland after winning the World Cup Stage IV. Deepika, Bombayala Devi and Rimil Buriuly claimed the World Cup title by beating the mighty South Korean team in Wroclaw, Poland, on Sunday (August 25). It was second successive World honours for the Indian women recurve team. Last month, they had won in Medellin, Colombia.

When they returned home on Tuesday morning, there were no officials from the Archery Association of India (AAI) to receive the champions. However, later they were honoured by association president Vijay Kumar Malhotra, where the media pressure made captain Deepika break down.

"Reporters from leading national networks insisted on doing one-on-one interviews with her while she wanted to offer sound-bytes as the team had a flight to catch. The argument finally ended with her in tears," a report on "CNN IBN" website ibnlive.in.com said.

"We all knew the Korean team was tough and it is hard to compete against them. On top of that the weather was bad, it was pretty windy. It was a tough match. We were tied for 3 matches and then we beat them in the end," Deepika was quoted as saying in the report.

OneIndia News