Just 17-year-old archer Sheetal Devi from a small town, Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir made every Indian proud in Paris Paralympic 2024.
She was born with a rare medical condition called phocomelia, which resulted in her being born without arms. She is the only paralympic archery champion without upper limbs. Despite all the odds, she becomes champion with his lower limbs. With her tremendous performance in 2022, Asian Para Games, Sheetal Devi bagged two gold medals in women individual and mixed doubles. She also won sliver medal in women’s double.
Sheetal Devi broke previous para archery world record of 698 points in paralympics 2024 qualifications after scoring 703 point out of 720 for second place. She lost to Zuniga Mariana by a very narrow margin of 137-138.
Sheetal Devi Career Journey
In an event organized by Indian Army, coaches Kuldeep Wadhwan and Abhilasha Choudhary notices her efforts and hidden talent of her. They wanted to coach her for big games but the major problem was, they never trained a person without upper limbs so they searched and got inspired buy the Matt Stutzman, who was a great archer without upper limbs.
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From that day to now, she never looked back and made every indian proud in Paralympics 2024. In 2023, she was also awarded Arjuna Award by Government of India for her remarkable performace despite all odds and for setting an example for other small town girls.