Bhubaneswar: All eyes on the final of the compound women open category, where Odisha’s ace archer Payal Nag will cross swords with 2024 Paralympics bronze medallist Sheetal Devi at the Khelo India Para Games 2025.
Sheetal from Jammu and Kashmir and Payal from Odisha will go against each other in the gold medal match on Sunday at the JLN Stadium here.
Sheetal is the first and only female para-archery champion without upper limbs, while Payal is the first athlete from India to compete without all the four limbs. With scores of 140 and 139, Sheetal and Payal triumphed at their respective semi-final clashes at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Saturday.
Besides the fierce competitive spirit which comes to the fore at the field of play, both Sheetal and Payal share a healthy relationship of camaraderie and a lot of knowledge exchange.
Getting her own set of inspiration from the 17-year-old Payal, Sheetal said, “Payal is very sweet. In just one and a half years of archery, she is shooting very well and I get to learn a lot from her. I don’t have arms, whereas she doesn’t have both arms and legs. Both of us are in the final and it will be special to compete against her.”
Foreseeing a great future for her fellow compatriot and now her closest competitor, Sheetal added, “When I saw Payal shooting the arrow for the first time, I wondered how she did it. But then a special prosthetics device was made through which she did it finally. That gave me the feeling that she can do very well and going forward, with all the hard work she will give India a medal.”
Sheetal won a bronze medal in the mixed team compound event at the 2024 Paralympics, becoming the youngest Indian Paralympian medalist to do so. She was born with phocomelia, a rare medical condition resulting in the absence of arms.
Payal, meanwhile, tragically lost all four of her limbs in an electrocution accident at the age of five. She trained at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Archery Academy in Katra, Jammu and Kashmir, under Kuldeep Vedwan. Kuldeep spotted her after a tweet went viral of her making a portrait using her mouth at an orphanage home in Bolangir, Odisha.
