Matt Stutzman, who taught himself to shoot using his toes, in action at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Matt Stutzman, who taught himself to shoot using his toes, in action at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Paralympics
How ‘armless archer’ Matt Stutzman transformed a Paralympic sport
Inspired by Michael Jordan, the American created an entire training method and is dreaming of an ‘armless 1-2-3’ in Paris
Paul MacInnes
@PaulMac
Thu 2 Nov 2023 04.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 2 Nov 2023 04.59 EDT
Matt Stutzman believes that controlling adrenaline is crucial if you want to be a successful archer. So he used to have a quick parachute jump before training. “I literally would shoot my bow, get on a plane and jump out,” he says. “Then I would land close by, shoot my bow until the adrenaline wore off and then go back up and jump out again.”
This may not be the kind of training approach that works for every athlete, but Stutzman is a bit different from the norm. For a start the American from Iowa is a world champion archer, and recreational parachutist, who was born with no arms. He is [...]