Sheetal Devi: The Indian archer without arms shooting for Paralympics gold

Archer Sheetal Devi picks up her bow, loads an arrow and carefully aims at her target, about 50m ( 164ft ) away, with a look of immense focus on her face.

At a training facility in India, her player is also playing a practice match with her.

Devi is seated on a couch, though. She uses her right leg to raise the bow, her right shoulder to pull up the string, and she uses her jaw to bow release.

What always changes throughout this process is Devi’s quiet personality.

The 17-year-old from Jammu district was born with phocomelia, a unique congenital disorder, making her the world’s initial- and just active- adult archer to compete without arms.

The Asian Para Games silver medallist is now gearing up for the Games, which begin on 28 August in Paris.

” I am inspired to win the gold”, Devi said. ” Whenever I see the trophies I have won]until then ], I feel inspired to get more. I have only just started”.

This year’s Games will feature around 4,400 players from all over the world competing in 22 different activities.

Since its inception in 1960, weightlifting has been a part of the competition. Despite dominating the prize matter from nations like Great Britain, the USA, and South Korea, India has won just one bronze medal in 17 different competitions.

According to the extent of their damage, para-archers are divided into categories.

The classification program, which determines an archer’s ability to use assistive devices like wheelchairs and release aids, also affects how far they can take.

W1 type wheelchair users have at least three of their four limbs affected, with either a manifest decline in muscle strength, coordination, or range of motion.

Those who compete in the open type are wheelchair users, have a balance problem, or are standing or resting on a bench, and have an deficits in either the top or bottom half or one part of their body. Depending on the occasion, competitors use either longbow or substance bows.

Devi is now the first woman in the world in the mixture available category.

In 2023, she won a gold at the Para-Archery World Championship, which helped her count for the Paris Games.

She may face fierce opposition in Paris, including Oznur Cure, the reigning World Champion, and earth number three Jane Karla Gogel.

However, those who know her claim that she was destined to succeed in the game.

” Sheetal]Devi] did not choose archery, archery chose Sheetal”, says Abhilasha Chaudhary, one of Devi’s two national coaches.

Devi, a farmer who raised a small town, was born in a gardening home and was the only child before she could use an arrow and bow.

The turning point came in 2022 when she visited the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board activities advanced in Jammu’s Katra- about 200km ( 124 miles ) from house- on the advice of an encounter.

That, she met Chaudhary and her other manager, Kuldeep Vedwan, who introduced her to the world of archery. Shortly after, she moved to a training facility in Katra area.

The instructors said they were fascinated by Devi’s tenacity.

The problem was huge, but their eyesight- to make the most of the strength in Devi’s legs and upper body- later prevailed.

Devi said her power came from years of using her feet for a lot of tasks, including writing and climbing plants with her friends.

However, she had some reservations about trying a career in weightlifting.

” I felt this was unachievable”, she said. ” I used to have aches in my arms, but apparently I did it.”

In her low moments, Devi would take inspiration from American archer Matt Stutzman, who famously shoots with his feet using a customised device.

Vedwan, Devi’s manager, took it upon himself to make a bow for her because her family could not purchase a machine like that.

At a nearby craft store, he customized it to fit her needs and used locally-sourced materials.

A small device Devi uses in her mouth to discharge the arrow is also included in the products, which is an upper-body strap made of materials used in handbag belts.

The real problem, however, was to figure out how to use more than simply her feet to form a well-rounded, green method.

” We had to control how to compromise the strength in her arms, change it and use it technically”, Chaudhary explains. Devi has powerful arms, but we had to figure out how to employ her back to shoot.

The pair therefore made a determined training regimen that started with Devi using a rubber band or TheraBand to aim at targets that were only 5 meters away.

As her confidence grew, so did the level of complexity, and within just four months of starting out, she began to use a proper spear and hit goals at a 50m distance, the competition normal for the compound available category.

Devi won the gold medal in the final of the women’s individual compound event at the Asian Para Games in 2023 after going from learning to simply shoot an arrow at small distances to hitting six 10s in a row.

For context, hitting the bullseye on the target board can earn a player the most points possible for a single shot.

” Even when I shoot a nine, I’m only thinking about how I can convert that into a 10 on the next shot”, Devi said.

There were also sacrifices made along the way, but it’s not just about hard work.

Devi claimed that since moving to Katra two years ago to train, she has n’t gone home even once.

She now intends to return only after the Paralympics are over, “hopefully with a medal.”

Either way, she is determined to give her best shot.

” I believe that no one has any limitations, it’s just about wanting something enough and working as hard as you can”, she said.

” If I can do it, anyone else can”.