Exciting achievement: Girl with “basketball” legs wins remarkable swimming medal with her imperfect body.

After the 100 breaststroke competition at the 2014 Yunnan Paralympic Games, Qian Hongyan said this with full expectation. Now, she has done it.

In the women’s 100-meter breaststroke competition of the 11th National Paralympic Games in 2021, she won the silver medal and won the bronze medal in the women’s 400-meter freestyle. This girl created miracles time and time again, breaking through herself time and time again. The girl who used to grow basketball now emerges as a butterfly in the swimming pool.

In a sense, she has long become synonymous with positive social energy. Whenever the “basketball girl” is mentioned, there is no longer the sympathy of the past, but the admiration from the heart.

1. Her name is Qian Hongyan
Her name is Qian Hongyan and she was born in an ordinary peasan family in Yunnan. Had it not been for that car accideпt, Qian Hongyan might not have become a well-known “basketball girl”. She used to go to school and work as a teacher, like most children, and had a calm but stable life. But when she was for years old, a car accident completely changed all of this.

In 2000, when the four-year-old Hongyan crossed the road with her little friend, a shoe fell in the middle of the road. The young children ran back to pick up their shoes without looking at the cars on the side of the road where they knew the danger.

Unexpectedly, a big truck passed her way and crushed her legs on the spot. Even if she was rushed to the hospital in time, she could not keep her leg in the end.

When she woke up, she only felt “two feet” cold. The child didn’t know what was going on, so he said timidly: “Mom, put on shoes for me, I’m cold.”

Before finishing talking, the child’s mother cried quietly. When tears fell on Hongyan’s face, she felt that something was disappearing. It took time to realize that she used to wear socks, shoes, or even pants.

In order to get her to walk on the ground, the whole family understood many ways, but the responses were not satisfactory. Until Grandpa brought back a basketball from the outside, cut it open, and fit it right into her lower body.

In order to make it easier for the child to walk, Grandpa Qian put some cotton in the basketball and made a pair of “wooden gloves” for his grandmother. Relying on these two things, Qian Hongyan was finally able to “walk”.

The simplicity of her youth, even just a “basketball prosthesis” that can replace walking, is enough to make her laugh. Faced with this scene of life, it happens to be admired by the media. Since then, she has also added a title on the Internet-Basketball Girl. With the follow-up of the media, more and more people stopped saying “Basketball Girl” and abandoned her family.

Since the car accident, this less-rich family has become increasingly poor. In order to help Qian Hongyan treat her, the family ran out of savings and borrowed a lot of foreign debts. And this huge family, grand parents, and Qian Hongyan’s two younger brothers, all of this is supported by Qianп’s father alone.

Out of sympathy, many people extended a helping hand. In 2005, the Ministry of Public Security invested 100,000 yen to send Qian Hongyan to the China Rehabilitation Research Center for rehabilitation. After arriving here, the expert installed a prosthesis for her, and carried out specific training, and the recovery effect was also good.

Second, swimming
Everything seems to be moving in a good direction, but everyone knows that this is not the final destination of Qian Hongyan. She has to think about the way forward and what to do.

Still confused, she watched the 7th National Games for the Disabled in Kuming.

The little girl watched those disabled people like herself on the field working hard and fighting fiercely, and there was light in her eyes. Qian Hongyan has an idea in her heart-she also wants to find her own life on the field like these people. She later met Zhang Honggh, the coach of the National Disabled Swimming Team. That year, Qian Hongyan was 11 years old.

How hard is swimming? For the able-bodied people, it’s just a matter of choking a few more salivas and going to the swimming pool a few times. But for Qian Hongyan, perhaps only he kпows abot the sffering and hardships. When a ship has no rudder, it will lose its way in the sea and sway from side to side. This is how Qian Hongyan first learned to swim.

Even if she choked water coυпtless times, even if Zhang Honghu patiently tagged her, she still couldn’t control her direction. But this girl has an advantage that is not considered an advantage-not afraid of hardship.

Swimming pays attention to balance and control of the center of gravity. After losing his legs, the center of gravity will inevitably shift. For this reason, she specializes in training her waist and abdominal strength, doing exercises of sit-ups and push-ups a day, supplemented by machine training. Over time, she was finally able to find balance in the water.