Robinhood Archer, 8-foot-plus spiker: Meet the Paris 2024 Paralympics’ coolest cats | Sport-others News

Even before 17-year-old Sheetal Devi shot herself to a mixed-team bronze medal at Paris 2024, she had become one of the faces of the Paralympic movement, with the world marvelling at her ability. Here was a teenager who was competing in a sport like para archery that demands precision. But more than merely competing, she was redefining the act of archery itself, with the bow held aloft with her right leg and the arrow being released subtle movements of her upper body, usually involving her shoulder leaning back slightly or her jaw. Watching Sheetal Devi compete at Paris 2024 made the internet’s jaw drop. She wasn’t the only one.
But away from their viral fame-attracting images, each of these athletes have a story. We look back some of the most fascinating athletes from the Paris Paralympics:
Matt Stutzman, the OG armless archer
Besides Sheetal, there are two other armless archers at the Paris Paralympics. Matt Stutzman was the OG armless archer, having first competed at the Paralympics in London 2012. Since then, he’s featured in the popular Netflix documentary ‘Rising Phoenix’. And at the start of the Paris Games, he met Hollywood star Jackie Chan, who told him that he was his hero. And why not? Stutzman is one of the most fascinating characters in sport: when competing, he brings an energy that’s almost unmatched. And it’s unusual because ordinarily, you would expect an athlete in a precision sport like para archery to be in zen mode while competing. Not Stutzman, though. He likes his crowds pumped up. He bounces around between ends, eggs the crowds to be at their loudest during competitions, and he seals his act pulling off his cap with his foot and flicking it in the air with a nonchalant flourish.

He likes that adrenaline coursing through himself while shooting so much, he simulated that in training jumping out of planes and driving race cars, and then immediately shooting arrows right after.
NBC Sports even reports that on one occasion Stutzman created a setup which involved his house, his race car, and his London 2012 Paralympic silver medal. Stutzman needed to shoot an arrow through his home and his race car to hit a target which had his medal hanging from it. There were chances he could damage one of the three things. But he hit the bulls eye, just like he did with a gold medal at Paris 2024.
Taymon Kenton-Smith, the Robinhood archer
Australian para archer Taymon Kenton-Smith did not win a medal at Paris 2024. But he surely won over the French fans, who were in attendance for the para archery events at the Paris Games.
Kenton-Smith is as colourful a personality as they come. Sporting bright yellow hair with green highlights besides a bucket hat with a giant feather of a wedge-tailed eagle — which is Australia’s largest bird of prey — tucked into it, it is impossible not to make the Robinhood comparisons.
Taymon Kenton-Smith in action during Paralympics. (Special arrangement)
He did upset some applecarts on his way to the fourth-place finish in the men’s individual event. He defeated world ranked number one, Mexico’s Samuel Molina in one of the earlier rounds.
“I came to Paris to win and I won the crowd. So that’s definitely something. I will never be forgotten, I’m pretty sure about that,” Kenton-Smith said later.

Born without fingers on his left hand, Kenton-Smith took up archery at the age of five. When he realised he was good enough to compete at the Paralympics some day, he promised his grandmother, when he was 14, that she would see him compete at the Paralympics one day.
Unfortunately, the time he made his debut at the Tokyo Paralympics, she was no more.
“She passed away just before Tokyo, but she knew that I qualified, and that promise was what drove me [there],” he said.
Morteza Mehrzadselakjani, the second tallest man in the world
Iran’s sitting volleyball team won its eighth Paralympic title at Paris 2024, defeating Bosnia and Herzegovina in the final. Powering the Iranian side to the title was the towering presence of Morteza Mehrzadselakjani. Towering, because he’s literally eight feet one inches tall.
Born with acromegaly — a condition causing excess growth hormone —Morteza is the joint-second tallest man in the world. This provides the Iran team with a dinct advantage in sitting volleyball. The team has gone on to win three gold medals from Rio 2016 to Paris 2024. Sitting on the floor with his arms outstretched skywards, Morteza reaches a height of over six feet.
This comes with specific challenges. In his initial days in the Games Village at Paris, Morteza was forced to “sleep on the floor” in his room because no bed was tall enough to fit him. The organisers at Tokyo three years ago had circumvented this issue having a specific bed made for him three years ago.
“He doesn’t have a special bed (at Paris), but he has got the most important aim in his mind,” Iran’s head coach Hadi Rezaeigarkani told Olympics.com. “It doesn’t matter for him whether he will lay on the floor or he’s not going to have enough to eat. In any way, he has the mind to become a champion.”
The spiker did just that in the final, top scoring for Iran with 27 points in the gold medal match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues
Over on the track, Brazil’s Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues has certainly made heads turn, Not just because he’s terrifying quick. That he is, as evidenced his bronze medal in the men’s 100m T63 event to add to the silver he had won in the same event at Tokyo 2020. But what stands out about Vinicius is the flashy over-the-head Oakley sunglasses he sports when he competes. It gives him the appearance of a really cool anti-hero in a Hollywood flick.
The story goes that the seeds of chasing glory at the Paralympics was sown into Vinicius’ head when he was lying on a hospital bed after a horrendous motorcycle accident in 2014. The accident caused him severe injuries, leading to his left leg being amputated above the knee.
Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues in action. (Special arrangement)
“That (winning medals at the Paralympics) is something I dreamed of when I was in the intensive care unit right after I lost my leg. I dreamed of that moment, with a packed stadium, with the Brazilian uniform on and my medal around my neck. It would be incredible,” Vinicius was quoted as saying in Brazilian media.
The story goes that the dream was so strong that he was up and running with a prosthesis five months after his accident at the age of 19.
Further fuel arrived from another heartbreak: his inability to qualify for the Rio Olympics at home.
“I didn’t make the team for Rio 2016 and the fact that I didn’t take part in such a great event gave me extra fuel. So it was one of the motivations I had to train hard and achieve what I did last year,” he told a local Brazilian outlet.
Tara & Hunter – Paris 2024’s Power Couple
Wearing the Paris Olympics long jump gold medal around the neck, Tara Davis-Woodhall tapped the coup de baton thrice to kickstart the evening session of athletics at the Stade de France on Friday. A few hours later Hunter Woodhall would become the Paris Paralympics gold medall. Having watched from the sidelines as his wife achieve her title a few weeks back, husband Hunter would get the chance to recreate the moment where they’d hug each other.
Hunter, who had both his legs amputated from the knees down before he turned one, said about his wife: “Tara has taught me a lot about self-affirmation. Before the Olympics, she was writing in her journal, ‘I will be the Olympic champ’. And ‘I am strong, I am fast’. I have had my journal here and I wrote in it today, ‘I will be the Paralympic champion’. And now I am.”
In the end, after a media interview, Tara and Hunter jumped in joy and clinked their medals with each other, as if the two medallions were kissing. City of love indeed.
Jeanette Chippington – from Seoul 1988 to Paris 2024
On the official athlete profile page of Jeanette Chippington, you’d have to keep scrolling for a few seconds to reach the bottom. She has a l of achievements that long. The 54-year-old Para Canoe athlete from Great Britain entered two events in Paris. She had won medals in the sport in Rio and Tokyo. But that’s not all. She used to be a Para Swimmer and her first Paralympics medal for GBR was a silver at Seoul 1988. She competed at five Paralympics from 1988 to 2004, winning 12 medals as a swimmer.
“I retired from competitive swimming and was looking for another sport to take up for a hob,” Chippington, who became paralyzed in both legs due to a virus that damaged her spinal cord, had said once. “I was introduced to kayaking a friend and fell in love with it immediately. It was only ever meant to be a hob.” But she quickly became so good at it, that she has won 11 Para Canoe World Championships gold medals since.
Omara Durand – Incredible triple-triple
Omara Elias Durand of Cuba won the T13 100m and 400m gold medals at the London Paralympics. For many, that alone would be a career achievement worth celebrating. But what did she do after that? Omara went and completed the sprint triple-triple at the next Paralympics. She won the T12 100m, 200m and 400m gold medals in Rio, Tokyo and Paris.

Durand was born with congenital cataract, leading to nearsightedness and astigmatism. After discovering Paralympic sports, Omara started excelling at a high level even when she was 15. After the birth of her child, Ericka, Durand’s vision deteriorated further. She took a three-year break from competitions to focus on motherhood. And after she returned to action, she hasn’t stopped winning.
On Saturday night, after the stunning hat-trick, an emotional Duran kissed the track goode. “I kissed the track because my daughter asked me to. My daughter said: ‘Mum, I am asking you to kiss the track in your last race’ and I did it to please her.”
Miles & Jacy – USA badminton pioneers, an Indian guiding them
Miles Krajewski and Jayci Simon went where no one from the United States had gone before. The first ever medalls in the sport at Olympics or Paralympics. It was an achievement acknowledged Michelle Obama on her Instagram, a major breakthrough for a sport that is still not seen as one worth major investment. “Nobody expected us to win a silver medal or play in the final match,” Krajewski said after the pair of teenagers won the silver in Mixed Doubles SH6. They did so, beating the higher-ranked Indian duo Nithya Sre and Sivarajan on the way. And incidentally, they had an Indian hand guiding them. USA’s Para Badminton coach is Abhishek Ahlawat. Ahlawat is a former Indian shuttler settled in the USA now, coaching full time. His voice was a constant feature in games featuring the Americans.

While their silver was special, one of the moments of the entire badminton program at the Paralympics, was when Krajewski threw himself around on the court in an electrifying rally down match point in his quarterfinals match. It ended in defeat, but that point became a sensation on social media, fitting of the kind of badminton the Americans played at La Chapelle Arena.