Andre Shelby became Paralympic champion at the Rio Games on September 14, 2016. Ten years on, the moment remains difficult for him to fully comprehend.

“Actually, about a month ago I just looked at all the matches that I shot in Rio and it’s still hard to believe,” Shelby said.

Shelby’s journey to the Paralympic podium had taken him through a long competition day in Rio, beginning around 7 a.m. and continuing until his final match late that evening.

“My last match was like eight, nine o’clock at night and I really didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that I had to just follow what my coach had always told me and what they’d taught me.”

The nerves were still there, but a turning point came after the semifinal.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking at the time but at one point after the semifinal match I looked at my coach and said, ‘I’m going to the gold match.’ She’s like yeah, to which I replied, ‘I’ve already won.’ At that point it was like a huge weight off my shoulders.”

In the gold medal match, Shelby faced Alberto Simonelli, the same archer who had defeated him at the 2015 World Archery Para Championships.

“It was overwhelming really because even though the weight was lifted off my shoulders going into the match, the year before I shot against Simonelli in a two-arrow shoot-off in Germany for the World Championships. So, I mean it was kind of a redemption at that point because he eliminated me back in 2015.”

In Rio, though, the ending would be different, as Shelby won 144-143. The gold medal was the culmination of a journey that had begun years earlier and taken him in a very different direction from the one he had originally planned. Shelby had served 18 years in the U.S. Navy and enlisted for another two when a motorbike accident in April 2004 left him paralyzed from the chest down.

Despite the injury and as someone who played football and basketball in high school, Shelby's competitive spirit remained, and so he turned to a variety of sports, including horseback riding, skiing, tennis and water skiing. In 2009, he discovered archery.

Shelby attended a camp led by Jerry Shields, who would go on to represent the United States at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. He later attended another camp run by Jeff Fabry and Russell Wolfe. Fabry had already won Paralympic bronze in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008 before claiming gold in London in 2012. Wolfe was a teammate of Fabry’s in Beijing and London.

By then, Shelby was hooked, and seven years on from first discovering the sport, he was a Paralympic champion.

For Shelby, the podium ceremony brought the achievement into sharper focus. His thoughts turned to the people who had supported him throughout his career, including his wife, Marilyn, and friends back home.

“The biggest thing was just thinking about my family, my wife, all the stuff she put up with me traveling, all the friends that I had back home, Joe Bailey, Jonathan Myers, Jerry Shields.

“We’d been texting back and forth and calling each other the whole time I was in Rio, and they were saying ‘you deserve to be there. You got it, just shoot the way you normally shoot and you’re going to get it.’ Having them in the back of my mind was just phenomenal.”

Shelby also made history in Rio as the first black Paralympic archer to represent the United States, yet in among all the firsts and fanfare, it was something which took place almost a year later that stands out.

“I think the biggest highlight was when I went back to my hometown (Jeffersonville, Indiana) in 2017 and they actually named August the 7th Andre Shelby Day. I was named Commodore of the Port, which is a huge port for commercial stuff coming in and out. So that really made me think, ‘yeah I’m here.’”

Ten years after Rio, another Paralympic Games is on the horizon, with Los Angeles set to host the 2028 Games. Shelby took a break from competition to deal with surgeries, but the time away has given him a different perspective on his relationship with the sport.

“I mean to be honest if I try out for it then I will give it my all and it would really mean something if I did shoot here in the U.S. But I took a little break. I had some issues with surgeries and stuff like that and now I’m realizing the reason I started archery in the first place. It was to have fun and to reminisce with all the people and the athletes I’ve shot with in the past.”

That change in perspective has allowed Shelby to return to the sport with a renewed sense of enjoyment.

“I’ve come back to having fun with it and if I can keep that then if I go out for LA then I think that’ll be a lot better mindset going into it.”

Shelby was in Dublin, Ohio in July for the 2026 Rebel Gear Buckeye Classic where he took gold in compound 50+ men, defeating another adaptive archer, Keith Sekora, in the final. The following month, in the same division, he finished fifth at the USA Archery Target Nationals and fourth in the U.S. Open. He also took fourth at Target Nationals in para compound men.

Whatever comes next competitively, Shelby’s impact on the sport is already being felt away from the field. He now visits clubs and schools to help teach archery, sharing the experience he has gained throughout his career.

“I think the biggest thing is the clubs I go to and some of the schools that I go to and help teach, a lot of people really look to me as a knowledge base or a coach that they can trust you, and I’m willing to provide that wealth of knowledge to anybody that’s willing to learn.”

For the humble Shelby, who turns 60 in December, passing that knowledge on is an important part of his connection to the sport.

“I’m not the one that’s just gonna hoard it and not do anything but I think the biggest thing is just me helping other people enjoy the sport of archery.”

His gold medal in Rio remains one of the defining moments in USA Archery’s Paralympic history. Since then, Kevin Mather won gold in Tokyo in 2020, while Matt Stutzman and Jason Tabansky both stood atop the podium in Paris in 2024, continuing a run of five U.S. Paralympic archery gold medalists across four Games.

For Shelby, though, the legacy of Rio is not simply the medal. It is the people who helped him get there, the sport that gave him a new direction, and the opportunity to help others discover the same enjoyment he found in archery. A decade after becoming Paralympic champion, Shelby is still finding new ways to give back to the sport that changed his life.

You can watch the full interview with 2016 Paralympic Games gold medalist, Andre Shelby, as he reflects on his Rio success 10 years on.