Olympic ticket in kitty, recurve archer Laxmirani Majhi gets a fond hug and a kiss from mother Padmini near Tatanagar in Jamshedpur around 4.30pm on Wednesday.

Laxmirani (27), who had gone with fellow archers to Tirupati on Sunday to seek divine blessings for Rio, flew down to Ranchi on Wednesday morning via Bangalore.

From Ranchi, the archer, with her fiancé Deepak Birua, reached Jamshedpur by road, where parents Diku and Padmini and siblings Tara, Jyoti and Suraj waited near Tatanagar area to take her home to village Bagula, Ghatshila, 42km from the steel city.

The former cadet of Tata Archery Academy also got a hero's welcome from city outfit Adivasi Yuvak Sangh. They picked her up in a van bedecked with marigolds to take her to Karandih Chowk for a felicitation.

A part of the three-member women's recurve archery team for Rio Olympics, along with Deepika Kumari and Laishram Bombayala Devi, Laxmirani before leaving for Bagula told The Telegraph she had to meet her family before joining the national camp at Bangalore.

"It's a very brief visit, I'll leave tomorrow (Thursday)," the lady with the Olympic aim said. "But, this moment is special."

Text by Jayesh Thaker; picture by Bhola Prasad