When Sheetal Devi burst into the spotlight as the rarest of rare athletes — an armless archer — she took the sporting world by storm. Soon, she became the first armless archer to be crowned world champion, to win an Asian Para Games gold (she won two), and by the time she turned 17, she already had a Paralympic medal.
So, this Saturday, when she stepped out to shoot for gold in the individual women’s compound event at the first World Archery Para Series competition, in Bangkok, she was the favourite. She’d already won two golds in mixed team compound and women’s team compound events in the tournament and had topped the qualifications a few days previously with 698 points, 20 more than her nearest rival.
Gold was hers to take. Except in her way was an archer who had taken up the sport inspired by Sheetal herself: Payal Nag.
Payal had already beaten Sheetal once (at the Nationals in Jan 2025) and had pushed her to the limits in the finals of the Khelo India Para Games and the Nationals earlier this year. She had been Sheetal’s partner when they won women’s gold in the tournament on Friday. She had been the one that finished qualification closest to Sheetal, with 678 points.
There’s also another defining factor to her — Payal is a unique archer: she is the world’s first, and only, international archer who is a quadruple amputee.
And on Saturday, she stepped up to the mark and beat the great Sheetal to win gold on senior international debut. The world’s first limbless archer was now a gold medalist at the inaugural World Archery Para Series.
The final was thrilling, and control swung from one archer to the other early on before Payal upped the ante. Payal started with a 10, and that set the tone for her to take the first end 27 – 25. In the second, Sheetal fought back with typical style, hitting 9, 10, 10 to take the end 29-27 and draw things up at 54-54. Then the Payal show truly started: A 9, 10, 9 won the third end 28-26 and with it took her lead to 82-80. 10, 9, 9 in the fourth saw her take that one 28-27 and extend her overall lead to three (110-107) before she closed things off with a most sensational 10, 10, 9 to tie the fifth end 29-29 and take the final 139-136.
Payal Nag (world’s 1st double-amputee para-archer) defeats reigning World Champion Sheetal Devi, to win Gold Medal in World Archery Para-Series, Bangkok. pic.twitter.com/ou54EZ3mrK
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It was a sensational triumph, and one that has come at the end of a great struggle. The daughter of a daily wage mason, Payal was in class III (~8 years old) when she stepped in a puddle of water on the terrace of an under-construction building that had been in contact with a live wire. The electric shock critically injured her, and doctors had to amputate all four of her limbs to save her life.
With little means to care for a quadruple amputee, her parents Bijay and Janata placed her at an orphanage, Parbati Giri Bal Niketan in their home district of Bolangir, Odisha. It was around this time that neighbours and relatives had cruelly, told them, “She won’t be able to eat or walk, better than this, just give her some poison.”
Eight years after the accident, though, her life would change thanks to the man who coached Sheetal Devi into a world champion: Kuldeep Vedwan. In the orphanage, she had taken to art, painting with the brush in her mouth and her work (and her determination) caught Vedwan’s eyes on social media. “I saw her photo on Twitter,” he told PTI. “She didn’t have arms or legs. I was determined to bring her to my academy [Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board]. I made Sheetal Devi a champion, and I always believed Payal could become one too.”
Just as he had done for Sheetal, Vedwan helped customize a special bow for Payal’s use, one that she could use with prosthetic legs (the right prosthetic has a specially made steel device fitted to help lift the bow) and the same chest release mechanism used by Sheetal. The arrows are loaded onto her bow by someone else. “It took me three months to tune her to the equipment,” coach Vedwan told PTI.
She started her training in 2023, and now, three years on, she’s taking on the whole world. And winning.
For India, this marks a moment of great promise. In Payal and Sheetal, India boasts two of the very best para compound archers in the world: and that promises great things in a big year with the World Championships and the Asian Games coming up.
Meanwhile, when asked about it on Saturday, Payal said, “I don’t want to talk about the accident today. Not today, please… I can talk about it some other time.”
You can see why she said that. The 18-year-old has not let that accident define her life, and it absolutely shouldn’t define her moment of great triumph, either. Today, and forever from now, it’s her response to the accident, her remarkable patience and fortitude to learn and unlearn and learn again, her courage to push herself to the limits of human endeavour that should matter, that should be spoken about. Oh, and we’ll speak about her a lot. Make no mistake, Payal Nag is here to stay.
