VIDEO: The Story of Basketball Girl, The Girl Born Without Legs.

In the beginning of the video when you see the adorable girl that has no legs and sits in a basketball you will be shocked, enraged, saddened.

You won’t even know what to feel for the poor soul who will probably never be able to do anything on her own and will always depend on others.

Well, worry no longer because she is all grown up and she can take care of herself because she is a champion.

According to dailymail.co.uk, a young Chinese girl’s journey to create a future for herself, despite losing both legs in a tragic accident, has become the story that inspired thousands of disable people in China.

Qian Hongyan, from Yunnan, south west China, made the headlines in 2005 when she was photographed ‘walking’ with the help of a basketball.

In 2009, the determined girl became a national champion in the Chinese National Paralympics Swimming Competition.

Last September, she won another gold medal in the 100m breaststroke final in the Yunnan Provincial Paralympic Games.

A four-year-old Qian Hongyan had both of her legs amputated after getting into an accident in 2000 where she nearly lost her life.

Her family were extremely impoverished. They farmed and produced silk for a meager living. Her grandfather resorted to cutting up an old basketball to replace of her lower body.

The little girl learnt to ‘walk’ on her hands by supporting her entire upper body using wooden pads with handles.

The basketball helped her to balance and provided a platform to rest on when she got tired.

In 2005, Qian Hongyan’s incredible hardship caught the widespread attention of Chinese, and later, international media.

For China, where disability is almost never discussed, this became a talking point. It also became a turning point in the then ten-year-old girl’s life.

With the help and support of donations, she was given the chance to travel more than 1,600 miles to Beijing and be fitted with her first pair of legs.

Every step of her journey became a newsworthy story that not only revealed a little of Qian Hongyan’s life but also highlighted the plight of living with disability in China.

She returned to Yunnan where she was encouraged to join South of the Cloud, a local swim team for people with disability and one of the first of its kind in China.

Qian Hongyan’s high amputation made swimming particularly difficult.
Within a few years, she was winning gold medals at national competitions and had dreams of representing China in the Paralympics in London 2012.

In 2009, Qian made headlines again by winning one gold medal and two silver medals in the Chinese National Paralympics Swimming Competition.

She harvested another three silver medals in the same national competition in the following year.

In 2011, just ahead of the Paralympic qualifiers, Qian Hongyan’s grandfather died.

She managed to win a bronze medal in the race but it wasn’t enough to get her on the team.

In September 2014, Qian won the 100m breaststroke final during the Yunnan Provincial Paralympic Games, which put her and her incredible life stories back in the spotlight.

It seems that Qian has turned her eventful childhood into a life filled with inspiration and incredible strength. One that few in China could live to match. And one of determination.