After her accident, she lost the will to live, Payal Nag recounted a year ago in an interview. The daughter of a mason from the eastern Indian state of Odisha was seven years old when an electric shock on a construction site badly injured her. The doctors had to amputate all her limbs. After the time in the hospital she initially did not want to go back to school. But her mother talked her into it, and so she learned to write with a pen in her mouth.
The story of the now 18-year-old archer Payal Nag is being rolled out again in India, because over the weekend she won gold in the final of the women’s compound archery. In this sport, which can be pursued by both disabled and non-disabled athletes, a modern competition bow is used that achieves particularly high precision through a system of pulleys and cables.
Payal Nag triumphed at her first major international appearance, the World Archery Para Series in Bangkok, with 139:136 against her 19-year-old teammate and her role model Sheetal Devi, who leads the world rankings. Devi, born without arms and who took bronze at the Paris Paralympics, takes it sportingly. She has already won two gold medals in mixed team and women’s team events in the tournament and led qualification a few days earlier with 698 points, 20 more than her closest rival. Nag had beaten Devi once before, in 2025 at a local tournament in Jaipur, and had pushed her to the limits at the Khelo India Para Games as well as the Nationals.
The two girls train together since Payal Nag was discovered by their shared coach Kuldeep Vedwan. Until the tenth grade Payal attended school in her village. Not everyone wished her well: neighbors and relatives advised the family to poison her. But Payal and her family did not give up.
Because the family lacked the means to further support their daughter, she came to an institution better suited to her needs. There she began to participate in competitions, including drawing. “Painting with my mouth became my way of expressing myself,” she says. She has made herself visible on social media. And that is how she was discovered on Twitter. Kuldeep Vedwan, who had already helped develop Sheetal Devi as a shooter, brought her to his academy in the northern Indian city of Jammu.
A Special Bow
“There I saw other children archery for the first time. And I saw Sheetal Didi shooting without arms,” Payal Nag says. At first she doubted whether she could keep up.
But then Vedwan built her a special bow that she can operate with her leg prosthesis and a chest trigger. The arrows are placed on the bow for her in advance by another person. The mechanism resembles Sheetal Devi’s bow, which she also operates with her legs.
In 2023 Payal began training. She is the first athlete with four amputations to compete internationally in this discipline. When she was about to face her own idol, she felt “great respect.” And success. After only three years of training she wins gold.
“I also want to show other people with disabilities: why should we not achieve something?” This is her motto today. For her “impressive” progress, Payal Nag and her coach at home received applause, including from well-known businesspeople Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Anand Mahindra.
Overall, India was strongly represented in Bangkok and clinched gold several times. The world championships could be exciting—and perhaps inspire more rising talent.
