Sheetal Devi‘s story begins in Loidhar, a small village in the Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir, where she was born on January 10, 2007, with a rare congenital condition called phocomelia, which left her without arms. Growing up in a farming family, Sheetal had never even seen a bow and arrow until she was around fifteen years old. When local coaches first identified her potential for sports, they tried fitting her with a prosthetic arm, but it didn’t work out. Rather than giving up, Sheetal pushed forward. A physical assessment revealed she had strong upper body strength, and in 2021, she chose archery as her sport.
An unbelievably rapid rise to the top
What followed next is almost hard to believe. Within just 11 months of picking up the sport, Sheetal competed at the 2022 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou and won two gold medals, one in mixed doubles and one in the women’s individual compound event, along with a silver in women’s doubles. That performance alone was enough to push her to the top of the world rankings in the women’s compound open category. She shoots using a technique built entirely around her own body: drawing the bow using her right foot and shoulder, while releasing the arrow using a specialised release aid held in her mouth. It’s a method she has trained and refined herself, and one that has now made her one of the most recognisable names in world archery, both able-bodied and para.
From Paralympic bronze to a historic World Championship gold
In 2023, Sheetal won a silver medal at the Para Archery World Championships in Plzeň, becoming the first female armless archer to win a medal at that event. That same year, she also received the Arjuna Award from President Droupadi Murmu, one of India’s highest sporting honours. At the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Sheetal, alongside her partner Rakesh Kumar, won a bronze medal in the mixed team compound event, a result that made her India’s youngest-ever Paralympic medallist at just 17 years old.Then came 2025, the year that truly cemented her place in history. At the World Archery Para Championships held in Gwangju, South Korea, Sheetal defeated reigning champion Oznur Cure Girdi of Türkiye 146-143 in the final to win gold in the women’s compound individual event, becoming the first and only female archer without arms to ever win a Para Archery World Championship title. She didn’t stop there; she also picked up a silver in the team event and a bronze in the mixed team category, completing a full set of medals at that one championship.
World No. 1 and Para Archer of the Year
Following this remarkable season, World Archery named Sheetal the “Para Archer of the Year 2025,” recognising what the organisation itself described as a genuine breakthrough year. Reacting to the honour, Sheetal shared on social media that being nominated alongside the world’s best and then winning the title felt “deeply personal,” describing it as a moment filled with gratitude and emotion. She currently holds the world No. 1 ranking in the women’s compound open category, a position she has largely held onto since her rapid rise in 2022. In 2025, she also became the first Indian archer to win the BBC Emerging Athlete of the Year award. Notably, Sheetal’s ambitions haven’t stayed confined to para archery alone. In 2025, she became the first Indian para archer to be selected for the country’s able-bodied national squad, after finishing third in selection trials for the Asian Cup in Jeddah, a rare crossover achievement in the sport.
The latest chapter: history in Ahmedabad
Sheetal’s story continues to unfold in real time. This week, Ahmedabad is hosting the third stage of the 2026 Hyundai World Archery Para Series, marking India’s first-ever international para archery event, with 109 archers from 19 countries competing ahead of the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Para Games. As the world No. 1 and reigning world champion, Sheetal has been the face of the event, competing in front of a home crowd in India for the first time in an international competition. She has lived up to the occasion. Sheetal shot a season-best score of 698 to top qualification in the compound women’s event, improving her own Asian record, before defeating fellow Indian archer Sarita 145-143 in the semi-final to book her place in the final, where she will face Kazakhstan’s Aizada Seidan.
A journey far from finished
From a village where she had never seen a bow, to becoming the world’s top-ranked female compound archer and a symbol of what’s possible against the odds, Sheetal Devi’s rise has been extraordinarily fast, but far from accidental. It’s been built on relentless training, an entirely self-developed technique, and a refusal to let her physical condition define her limits. With the Asian Para Games later this year and her sights reportedly set on making her mark in able-bodied archery too, her story looks far from finished, it may just be entering its most exciting chapter yet.
