Shooting Beyond Limits
“
There was a time when I felt incomplete and sought external validation. It took time to embrace my true self, but the moment I did, magic unfolded. Archery changed my life.”
— Sheetal Devi, on her Instagram
Born on January 10, 2007, in the remote mountain village of Loidhar, Kishtwar, in Jammu & Kashmir, Sheetal Devi arrived in this world with a condition called phocomelia, which is a rare congenital disorder that resulted in the complete absence of arms. In a small village where resources were scarce and awareness about disability even scarcer, she could easily have been become invisible.
Instead, at just 18 years old, Sheetal Devi is the first and only female para-archery world champion without upper limbs, a Paralympic bronze medallist, an Arjuna Award recipient, and ESPN India’s Para Athlete of the Year 2025. She does all of this using only her legs and feet to shoot a compound bow with a draw weight of over 20 kilograms.
🥉 Paris 2024
Youngest Indian Paralympic medallist (age 17)
🥇 Gwangju 2025
First armless woman to win para archery World Championship gold
703 pts
Broke the world ranking record at the 2024 Paralympics
World No. 1
Ranked top in para compound women’s archery since 2022
Table of Contents
The journey
From a village in the mountains to the world podium
2007
Grows up in a remote mountain village, never letting her condition define her spirit. As a child, she climbs trees with her legs, unknowingly building the core strength that will change her life.
2020–21
The Indian Army’s Rashtriya Rifles unit notices Sheetal Devi at a youth event in Kishtwar. Struck by her athleticism and confidence, army coaches Abhilasha Chaudhary and Kuldeep Baidwan decide to take her under their wing. They support her education and arrange medical care, including treatment in Bengaluru.
2022
After just 11 months of training, Sheetal Devi competes at the Asian Para Games. She wins two gold medals and one silver, an almost unbelievable debut. She shoots to world No. 1 in para compound women’s archery.
2023
Wins silver at the World Archery Para Championships, becoming the first female armless archer ever to medal at the event. Wins gold at the Khelo India Para Games. Receives the prestigious Arjuna Award from the President of India, the youngest recipient in her category that year.
2024
At the Paris Paralympics, she breaks the world ranking round record with a score of 703. Wins bronze in the compound mixed team event alongside Rakesh Kumar, becoming India’s youngest ever Paralympic medallist. The world notices.
2025
Wins gold at the World Para Archery Championships in Gwangju, defeating reigning Paralympic champion Oznur Cure Girdi of Turkey. Becomes the first armless woman ever to be crowned world champion. Then, competing alongside 60+ able-bodied archers at national selection trials, she places third, becoming the first Indian para archer selected for the able-bodied national team.
Every arrow earned through adversity
Born without arms, in a world that wasn’t ready
Growing up with phocomelia in a remote Himalayan village meant Sheetal faced not only physical challenges but also the weight of limited resources, limited exposure, and a world with no blueprint for what she might become. There were no role models, no frameworks . But here was Sheeta Devi, a girl with extraordinary will in ordinary circumstances.
No prosthetics. No roadmap. No precedent.
When coaches first considered training Sheetal, they planned to use prosthetic arms to help her shoot. That option was ruled out by doctors. There was no existing training method for a woman shooting archery without arms. Her coaches had to research across the world, eventually finding American archer Matt Stutzman, who shoots with his feet, as their only reference point. They built her technique from scratch.
A rule change that forced her to relearn everything
In 2025, a major World Archery rule change prohibited the heel from touching the bow, a technique central to Sheetal Devi’s shooting. She had to completely reinvent her grip, using only her toes. The physical pain was real and lasting: “There was so much pain in my leg. The soreness in my toes is still fresh,” she shared. She overcame it, and went on to win the world championship that same year.
The Asia Cup cancellation : a recurring theme of delayed dreams
After becoming the first para athlete to qualify for India’s able-bodied national archery team in late 2025, Sheetal Devi was set to make her able-bodied international debut at the Asia Cup in Jeddah. The event was cancelled. Yet another obstacle in a life defined by overcoming them. Her response? She kept training. Her aim, as always, remains steady.
Turning limitations into precision weapons
The very habits that filled her childhood, climbing trees, moving through the mountains using only her legs. This unknowingly gave Sheetal the extraordinary core strength and lower-body control that became the foundation of her archery. What others saw as a difficult childhood, she turned into physical power.
Sheetal’s resilience is not accidental, it is practised. When the prosthetics plan failed, she didn’t wait for a new solution. When the rule changed, she absorbed the pain and adapted. When she lost matches, she wrote: “I didn’t succeed at first, but I never gave up. I learnt from every defeat.”
She found a community: the Indian Army gave her the first door, coach Kuldeep Vedwan gave her the sport, Matt Stutzman gave her the method, and coach Gaurav Sharma helped her refine it post-Paris. She accepted support without letting it diminish her agency, and built, arrow by arrow, a career that now spans Paralympic podiums and able-bodied national squads.
She also turned visibility into purpose. Her Instagram account, started after her Asian Para Games win, now has over 329,000 followers. She uses it deliberately to lift children with disabilities, to send messages to parents, to show the world that “people with disabilities can also achieve something.”
What Sheetal’s story means for every woman
Sheetal Devi’s story speaks to every woman who has been told, by circumstance, by society, or by her own doubts that she is not enough. Not equipped enough. Not strong enough. Not ready enough. Not smart enough. And what not!
She shoots a 20-kilogram compound bow with her toes. She wins world championships against athletes born with full use of their bodies. She qualifies for the national able-bodied team while holding the world No. 1 para ranking. None of this happened despite her challenges. It happened through her willingness to keep showing up, keep adjusting, and keep aiming.
The lesson isn’t that she is superhuman. It’s that she is totally, achingly human, someone who felt incomplete, who needed time to accept herself, who faced real pain and real disappointment, and chose, again and again, to let none of it be the final word.
Sheetal Devi’s message to every girl and woman watching: “Please support your kids, support yourselves, you are capable of anything. You can win medals. You can change your life.”
At workwellwomenia, we believe that. And this week, Sheetal shows us exactly how it’s done. Do you need more doses of inspiration? Here’s more inspiring stories for you: