Yang Hongqiong, a resounding name, is also a household name.
At the 13th Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, one eye-catching highlight moment after another was engraved on her ups and downs on the road of life. The highlight moment built a new height in her life, and also built a new height in the mainland winter Paralympic movement.
In the competition, she single-handedly won three gold medals in the women's cross-country skiing long, medium and short distance (sitting) competition, becoming the first "triple crown" in the history of the Chinese Winter Paralympic Games.
At the closing ceremony, she appeared as the flag bearer of the Chinese sports delegation, with a bright red flag flying high on the wheelchair side.
At the summary and commendation meeting of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, she was awarded the title of "Outstanding Contribution Individual" of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, and as a representative of the sports delegation of the Winter Paralympic Games, she came to the solemn Great Hall of the People to speak at the rostrum.
Yang Hongqiong made a splash at the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games. From ignorant children who like to read, to flower girls who fall into the dark moment, to cheerful girls who come out of desperate situations, to associate with sports, to the confidence and maturity of the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, readers hope to know too much. To this end, the reporter came face to face with her, walked into her hometown, walked into her home, and traced the story behind her growth.
Darkest hours
For the sake of parents must live
"Mom, I don't have legs anymore!"
"Your legs aren't good, don't talk nonsense."
Yang Hongqiong's mother, Zhang Shiying, still does not want to believe the fact that her daughter is paralyzed in both lower limbs. Such a cruel fact happened when Yang Hongqiong was 14 years old.
Yang Hongqiong was born in 1989 in Anju Village, Zhongshan Township, Luoping County, a small village surrounded by towering mountains. The small village is nestled in the mountains, and in the spring, the canola flowers that cover the mountains envelop the village.
Since childhood, Yang Hongqiong has been strong and active, lively and cheerful and intelligent. Since she was a child, she has thought of going out of the mountains through reading and changing the fate of poverty. When she was in elementary school, she loved to read, her grades were good, and her life was moving in the direction of her dreams.
When she was 14 years old, she and 3 small friends went to the mountain opposite the village to cut firewood, and when they were fighting with their friends, they accidentally fell from the hillside and fell on a rock on their backs, resulting in a fracture of the entire thoracolumbar vertebrae. "I don't feel the legs, I touch it with my hands like wood." Her legs were unconscious, but she didn't realize the seriousness of the problem at all, and she thought about slowing down a little while and walking home.
After resting for a while, her legs still did not respond, just as a villager in the village passed by and carried her back. When she got home, she still couldn't feel the presence of her legs.
At that time, her father was working outside the home, and her mother and several relatives carried her seven or eight kilometers of mountain roads before getting on the bus to the hospital in Luoping County. After more than 2 months of treatment in the hospital, she almost collapsed when she heard the doctor tell her that her lower limbs were paralyzed and she could not stand up from then on.
Can't go to school, can't jump like other friends, can't go out, meals are brought to bed by the mother, defecation needs the mother to help solve, everything has changed completely. "My family is poor, and I don't even have a wheelchair. I began to autistically, and the concern of my relatives for me, I saw as sympathy or pity, it was a kind of harm to me, I did not speak to anyone, just lay on the cot day after day and suffered. Those bitter and embarrassing past events, Yang Hongqiong still remembers.
"I was so desperate that I thought of many ways to leave this world, but I thought again, I left, what should my parents do, I haven't repaid them, I want to live." 」
It was such a thought that supported her through 8 spring, summer, autumn and winter.
She knitted sweaters and embroidered flowers and tried to get out of her little room. Her mother took her out into the yard to bask in the sun. When the spring flowers are in full bloom, I occasionally go to the platform on the second floor to see the cauliflowers, look at the mountains, and imagine what it looks like outside the mountains.
For years, her world was the tiny sky above the yard and the towering mountains in the distance. She sometimes sits on the platform for half a day.
She often remembered her mother's tearful eyes because she was hurting her, and remembered the sneers of others, "This girl can only be a burden on others, and she is looking for someone to marry when she is young." She cheered herself up, "You won't be a burden on others, one day you'll 'stand up'."
Bright moments
Walk on a path full of hope
At the age of 22, Yang Hongqiong made up her mind to go out and integrate into society and support herself through her own efforts.
Her father bought her a mobile phone, and she used it to inquire about the disabled, and learned that the disabled could attend the Huaxia Secondary Professional School in Yunnan Province in Kunming, and the flame of hope lit in her heart.
In 2012, Yang Hongqiong, who had been trapped at home for many years, struggled out of confusion and pain, and with the help of the Luoping County Disabled Persons' Federation, her parents sent her to Huaxia Secondary Professional School in Yunnan Province to study computer science.
Her other world opened up.
She seriously studied computer operation skills, and looked forward to graduating and doing design work in the photo studio, hoping to support herself while leaving beautiful moments for others. Unexpectedly, she ushered in another turning point in her life.
In 2014, she was selected by the Yunnan Provincial Disabled Persons' Federation to become a member of the provincial wheelchair basketball team, and won the bronze medal in the wheelchair basketball competition of the National Paralympic Games held in Tianjin with the team. Under the influence of her teammates, she slowly accepted the reality and began to be full of hope for life, and the girl who had been lost regained her self-confidence.
The Paralympic spirit of "self-improvement, self-reliance, self-confidence, hard work, and upward mobility" inspires Yang Hongqiong.
In 2018, she entered the national paracross and biathlon teams through the cross-border selection organized by the China Disabled Persons' Federation. She was 29 years old.
Yang Hongqiong crossed the border to change the project, half because of her curiosity about snow, and half to challenge herself. For an older athlete, it takes guts and courage.
The first training camp came to Dalian, on the training ground, she did not see the expected snow, inevitably a little disappointed. "The snow can't be seen, so focus on training," she reassured herself.
During training, because she often wrestled, the coach named her "Yang Every Wrestling", and her teammates called her "explosive pack". "I'm not afraid of wrestling, where I fall, I'm going to flatten everywhere." Falling down again and again did not scare Yang Hongqiong, but made her more and more courageous.
As one of her coaches, Wang Jinyou, said in an interview with reporters, "For skiing, Yang Hongqiong has no talent, but she is bold, and she has a strength in her bones that does not accept defeat, and there is no word 'no' in her life, which is also the most optimistic point for her by the coaching team, and her success is inseparable from this strength." Her teammate Yuan Mingshou also expressed the same view: "She is particularly able to endure hardships, especially able to fight, as long as she looks for one thing, she will insist on doing this well, and her teammates admire her tenacity." ”
2019 and 2021 are Yang Hongqiong's toughest two years. After entering the team for more than a year, the results are at the middle and lower levels in the team, plus the age is not small, her mother told her more than once not to practice, go back to her hometown to find someone to marry and live with peace of mind. But she said that she must persevere to the end, and if the results are not good in the future, she will not regret it. In 2021, she participated in the National Paralympic Games cross-country skiing short, medium and long distance (sitting) 3 events, and the results of the three events were the first from the bottom, which was another heavy blow for her.
"I can't just give up." She was not reconciled and returned to Yunnan to adjust her mentality.
There are many mentors on her life path to guide her to keep moving forward, and in those days when she returned to Yunnan, many people gave her meticulous care and enlightened her with heart. "At that time, a teacher of the Yunnan Provincial Disabled Persons' Federation told me that no matter what happened in life, he was proud to look down on it, he was frustrated with his fate, and the road would become wider and wider after his heart was wide. I used my heart to understand this sentence, and then I slowly let go of it, not paying much attention to the results, not paying much attention to what kind of results I will achieve after my efforts. Since then, I have relaxed from my state of mind to the muscles of my whole body, and it is such a process that I have fully realized the potential in my body. ”
Sports taught Yang Hongqiong that "people have unlimited possibilities". During that period of low ebb, she often remembered her past, and remembered how the child who had closed herself for many years came out of the "door of the heart" again.
Yang Hongqiong walked out of the shadow of defeat.
Returning to the training ground, she looked down on the gains and losses, opened her mind to accept the gains and losses, and the training results became better and better. On the eve of the Winter Paralympic Games, she won the first place in three ski tests conducted by the team.
Highlight moments
With a strong motherland
in order to realize the dream
"Long live the motherland!" "I deeply feel that it is our greatest happiness to live in such a great era." "With a strong motherland, we have the opportunity and confidence to realize our dreams in the international arena." ...... This is Yang Hongqiong's heartfelt voice.
On March 6, in the women's long-distance sitting group competition of cross-country skiing at the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, Yang Hongqiong, the first to cross the finish line, could not help but raise her arms and shout: "Long live the motherland!" This is her most sincere emotional release, in her heart, without a strong motherland, there is no achievement of her own.
Yang Hongqiong is a filial daughter. On the night of her first gold medal, she called her parents to report the good news and said, "In the future, I can raise you!" ”
"In the face of a strong opponent, the moment I started on the field, I didn't think about whether I could win the championship, but just kept encouraging myself and trying to do every move well." Yang Hongqiong said that the results of this Winter Paralympic Games were a bit unexpected, perhaps because his mentality was better, and he controlled the rhythm of skiing, as long as he worked hard.
"Just work hard." It was such a simple sentence that made her spell out the highlight moment.
She won three gold medals in the women's cross-country skiing long, middle distance and short distance (sitting) competition. She did not participate in the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympic Games, and she had some regrets in her heart. At the closing ceremony, she attended as a flag bearer, and when the bright flag flew high on the side of her wheelchair, her inner pride sprang up. When she learned that she was going to speak on behalf of the Winter Paralympic sports delegation at the summary and commendation meeting of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, she was excited and proud, she said: "At that sacred and glorious moment, I am not only representing myself, but also representing all the athletes participating in the Winter Paralympic Games. It is the prosperity and strength of the motherland that can give disabled athletes like me the opportunity to participate in the Winter Olympics, so that more and more disabled athletes have the opportunity and confidence to realize their dreams in the international arena. ”
Warm moments
It felt so good to be home
In the warm breeze, Yang Hongqiong returned to his hometown of Qujing, which had been away for 4 years.
The careful care of the "mother's family", the clean streets, the fresh air, the blooming flowers, whether they see or feel, the warmth envelops her heart.
I ate the spicy chicken and small pot of rice noodles that I never forgot, and drank the konjac gum from my hometown. It's nice to feel like back home.
I still remember that day, in Luoping County, when she was about to meet her parents who missed her day and night, she pushed the wheelchair much faster than usual, and when she was still half a meter away from her parents, she hugged her parents and choked up. Her mother stroked her head, tears swirling in her eyes.
The people of the hometown welcomed the "daughter" home with the warmest etiquette. She waved, hugged and interacted with the villagers. "Sister Hong Qiong, you are our example, we must learn from you." The fervent praise was endless. She said affectionately: "I have walked down this road, and there are thousands of hometown fathers and elders behind me who silently pay attention to me, support me, and encourage me behind my back, so that I am not alone outside." After I won the gold medal, the villagers were proud of me and proud of me, in fact, this is not only my own glory, but also the glory of the people in my hometown. ”
She has not returned home for 4 years, has not seen her relatives for 4 years, and dreamed countless times of dreams of grass and trees in her hometown, dreaming of her relatives. Yang Hongfeng, a sister who is in her third year of high school, asked for leave to accompany her home, "Knowing the moment my sister won the championship, I was proud and excited, and I was moved to cry." In Yang Hongfeng's heart, her sister is the guide on her life path, teaching her the truth of being a person, and is her friend and confidant.
When I got home, everything was still familiar. The mountain that brought her suffering and strength still stood across the village.
"Don't be afraid of the high mountains, as long as we have light in our hearts, love, and don't give up, we will always wait for the sun outside to shine on us." Whether in an interview or speak, this sentence is the one she says the most. She hopes that her experience will inspire and inspire more than 400,000 disabled brothers and sisters in Qujing City, who can bravely face the challenges of life, have an indomitable fighting spirit, a self-improvement attitude to life, and bloom a wonderful life.
Zhongshan Township, where Yang Hongqiong was born, has a glorious revolutionary tradition, and today, the revolutionary atmosphere is still endless, and the red cultural atmosphere is extremely strong. When she went out of the Zhongshan Revolutionary History Exhibition Hall after visiting, a beam of light hit her, and she raised her head to meet the light, and her eyes were more determined.
"Bearing in mind the overall situation, being confident and open, facing difficulties, pursuing excellence, and creating a better future", this is the spirit of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the heavy responsibility on the shoulders of the Winter Olympics, and the response of Yang Hongqiong.
Qujing Daily reporter Li Lin'e wen /photo