What to Know About the Armless Archers Taking the Paralympics by Storm

At 41, archer Matt Stutzman proved that he’s still at the top of his game—Para Archery, that is—when he won a gold medal in Paris on Sunday, beating China’s Ai Xinliang at the men’s individual compound open and setting a new Paralympics record with 149 points scored out of a possible 150.

It’s a feat 12 years in the making since Stutzman’s debut at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, where he won silver. But it also comes as Stutzman’s Paralympic days draw to a close: “I knew going into this it was going to be my last Games, so there's a lot of emotion, and I didn't expect this medal, to be honest,” he recently said, noting previously the physical toll competitive shooting has taken on his hips.

Stutzman, who hails from Fairfield, Iowa, is distinct from many other para archers: while all have some form of impairment, most are still able to use their arms to hold the bow. But Stutzman, who was born with no arms, uses his legs instead.

For years, Stutzman was the sole armless archer competing in the Paralympic Games. But he’s been joined in Paris by three others: Belgium’s Piotr Van Montagu, Mexico’s Víctor Sardina Viveros, and India’s Sheetal Devi—the only woman and only teenager of the group.

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Debuting on the Paralympic stage at just 17, Devi stunned the world during the 1/8 elimination round of the women’s individual compound open event by opening with a bullseye that sent the crowd cheering and social media into a frenzy, wowing among others French soccer player Jules Koundé and British broadcaster Piers Morgan. More than one observer described her form as “poetry in motion.”

Devi ended up losing the match by a single point, but Team USA’s Stutzman, who has mentored her, described Devi to The Indian Express on Friday as “the future of the sport. She’s going to probably inspire the next generation more than I inspired this generation.”

Here’s what to know about the armless archers taking the world by storm.

Matt Stutzman, the pioneer

Stutzman was born without arms though doctors weren’t able to point to any specific condition or cause. “They did some research, and I’m just one in a million,” he said in a Paralympic Games video profile earlier this year. While he learned to do common chores without arms like driving a car and typing, he said he struggled to find jobs as a visibly disabled person. 

He took up archery at age 28. In 2010, he saw it on TV, and was inspired to teach himself. After several practices, Stutzman entered competitions, alongside athletes without disabilities, and he won several events. While competing in Las Vegas in 2011, someone approached Stutzman to suggest Paralympic archery, which motivated him to enter qualifying tournaments. When he first competed in London in 2012, his expectations were low. He ended up winning a silver medal.

Since then, Stutzman has fine-tuned his technique, and he went on to win silver at the 2015 Para Pan American Games. He has also won several medals at the World Archery Para Championships: a team gold in 2015, an individual bronze in 2019, an individual gold in 2022, and a team bronze in 2023. 

In December 2015, Stutzman broke a world record for the furthest accurate distance shot, which was previously held by a person without disability. 

Outside of archery, Stutzman is a self-declared adrenaline junkie: He enjoys jumping out of planes and racing cars over 300 km/h (186 mph).

Stutzman has said that the 2024 Paralympic Games may be his last due to hip issues and that he is exploring other sports. But to him, his proudest achievement is inspiring others like him, he told World Archery: “There’re more armless archers involved in this sport now. You can take away all my medals, and I wouldn’t care, because that would be my medal.”

Sheetal Devi, the rising star

Devi is one of those next-generation armless archers. Born in 2007 with phocomelia, a rare congenital disorder leading to underdeveloped limbs, according to the OIympics website, she was strong-willed and enjoyed climbing trees as a child.

The Indian Army observed Devi’s athleticism at an army camp in 2019, and has since been providing her educational and medical support, according to the Indian Express. It was only in 2022 that Devi took up archery, when she visited the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board sports complex more than 100 miles from her home and there met coaches Abhilasha Chaudhary and Kuldeep Vedwan, who introduced her to the sport, according to the BBC. After prosthetics for Devi didn’t work out, her coaches reportedly looked to Stutzman’s method of shooting for her to follow.

Devi has been on a rapid ascent ever since. At the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou in 2023, she took home gold medals in the individual compound open event and the mixed team compound open, and she also won silver in the women’s doubles compound open. At the 2023 World Para Championships in Pilsen, where Devi impressed Stutzman and he offered her tips to improve, she won another individual silver medal.

At the 2024 Paralympics, Devi started off the women’s individual compound open ranking round by breaking a record with 703 points scored out of a possible 720. (Turkey's Öznur Cüre later topped that with 704.) And though she was eliminated from the individual event after a narrow loss to Chile’s Mariana Zúñiga, Devi is not finished in Paris just yet: She’s still hoping to medal alongside India teammate 39-year-old Rakesh Kumar in the mixed team compound open.