Since the age of 5, Li Duan, a child from Changchun, Jilin Province, has been exposed to basketball with his mother, who was once a basketball player.
Tall, agile, excellent bouncing, his talent in basketball far beyond his peers was soon discovered by his mother. Soon, he entered the Training Base of Jilin Province to start systematic basketball training. A few years later, he entered the Shenyang Military Region Youth Men's Basketball Team, became a professional basketball player, and later was transferred to the national special sports team training for young athletes, and became a teammate with Wang Zhizhi and others.
In 1994, Li Duan was selected for the Shenyang Military Region Men's Basketball First Team, won the championship several times in the youth league and the all-army competition, and in the 1995-1996 season of the Chinese Basketball Professional League, he worked together with his teammates to achieve a good result of eighth place. That year, he was only eighteen years old, and the future was bright.
Li Duan was a brilliant basketball player. Image from a Paralympic promo recorded by Li Duan
However, just when Li Duan, who was called "Dunk Superman" by his teammates, had great ambitions and wanted to show his grand plan on the basketball court, an accident occurred.
On September 11, 1996, when Li Duan was moving a fire extinguisher in the water room that was blocking the way, he suddenly exploded at the bottom of the fire extinguisher, which had already been severely corroded. The upper part of the fire extinguisher flew up under strong pressure and directly hit Li Duan's brain.
Li Duan's right eye was shattered, the optic nerve of his left eye was bruised and lost his sense of light, the maxilla and skull bones were cracked, the nose bridge bone was crushed fractured, the brain hemorrhage, and the first section of the index finger of the right hand was also blown off... He was in a coma for 15 days before he gradually woke up. After waking up, Li Duan had to undergo painful treatment again and again, and he had more than 70 stitches just so narrow between his eyes. Unfortunately, however, his eyes no longer had any sense of light and became completely blind.
Image source: Paralympic promo recorded by Li Duan
Li Duan, who has lost his light, is very unaccustomed to life, and he either hits his head or touches his feet together, and he can only grope forward no matter where he goes. From a player galloping on the basketball court to a disabled person who has lost his light in an instant, his inner pain can be imagined. He once thought about taking his own life, but in the end he chose to survive in order not to make his family miserable.
In order to adapt to the characteristics of the blind man's life needs to be calm and slow, he wrapped and knotted a large mess of rope little by little, and then slowly and patiently untied it. Entangled and untangled, untangled and retangled, he spent two whole months to hone his character. Although his hands had come out of the calluses, he knew that the only way to calm his character was to calm down, because he could not sink, he could not give up on himself.
But once again, doom came. On the eve of the National Day in 1997, while he was still receiving treatment, his father died suddenly due to cancer. The previous accident caused Li Duan to fall from the sky to the bottom of the valley, and the departure of his father made him feel that he had fallen from the bottom of the valley to hell. But thinking that his brother was still young, and that he was the eldest son and a man, he held back tears and was determined to help his mother support the family.
In order to live and study in the future, Li Duan entered the Shenyang Blind School. However, the teacher said that his big hands had long been big and rough because of the play, and he didn't feel much about the slight bulges on the paper. The more sensitive index finger of his right hand was also broken in that accident, and it was impossible to learn Braille, so he did not bother to teach him. But Li Duan refused to give up. On three days, he sweated profusely in Braille in his small room, and then slowly touched his relatively sensitive left index finger, which had been soaked with sweat and became soft and indistinguishable.
After playing basketball for so many years and getting used to the wind and fire on the field, it is really difficult for Li Duan to practice such meticulous Braille. But as soon as he thought that he could not rely on his mother's service for the rest of his life, he gritted his teeth and gradually regained the calmness that he had exercised when he was in the ward and was entangled in the rope. After only 15 days, he had mastered all the basics of Braille, breaking the teaching record of the blind school.
Until later, his fingers were even dexterous enough to easily operate any function of the mobile phone, send text messages with 100% accuracy, and were jokingly called "SMS King".
With pictures, pictures and text have nothing to do
In order to enable Li Duan to support his family, the army sent him to learn massage, and then arranged for him to serve his teammates in the Shenyang sports team. Li Duan returned to the training ground and the arena, and heard the familiar whistle and the crash of basketballs on the floor. Unlike before, this time, he came back as a professional masseuse.
Just when Li Duan completely gave up his dream on the sports field and concentrated on doing a good job in the new profession of massage, fate suddenly gave him a turnaround. In May 1998, when the Liaoning Paralympic Sports Team went to the blind school to recruit athletes, his excellent physical condition was immediately discovered by the coach. Li Duan became an athlete again, and according to his physical condition, the coach asked him to focus on training in the long jump.
Getting back on the field is certainly not so easy. When he first started training in the long jump, blind in both eyes, he always felt that the front was an abyss, and he did not dare to run forward, although there were coaches clapping hands in front to guide the direction, but Li Duan often ran and ran and fell inexplicably, falling every day with a blue and purple piece on his body. The runner is prone to fouls when he is big, and his steps are small and affect his performance; when he runs crookedly, his feet often fall on the hard ground outside the bunker or bump on the edge of the bunker.
"Whenever I encounter difficulties, I silently confess to myself in my heart: a soldier can be wounded, but a wounded soldier is still a soldier; a soldier can fall, but the will of a soldier cannot be broken." Li Duan said, "In the dictionary of soldiers, there is only indomitability and courage to go forward!" "Kung Fu pays off. Born as an athlete, he has been trained for a long time, and the potential of his body has been fully demonstrated. In the year he began practicing the long jump, he won the national selection competition.
At the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Li Duan ran his perfect 12-step jump, and when the applause of the whole stadium surrounded him, he said: "I feel, that's what I felt like 10 years ago when I slid into the basket in the air, like in heaven." After gliding 6.40 metres in the air, he became the heaviest blind man on earth to jump the farthest that year, winning his first Paralympic gold medal. In the ensuing triple jump, he jumped another 13.1 metres to win his second Paralympic gold medal. At the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, he broke the world record with a time of 13.71 meters on his doorstep and won the gold medal in the triple jump of the Paralympic Games.
Hearing the sound of the national anthem on the Paralympic games several times, Li Duan was particularly proud in his heart, although he embarked on a path that was not exactly the same as he imagined in his childhood, but on this road, he also walked firmly and happily.
Once, in an interview, Li Duan said this sentence: "My eyes will always be a dark ocean." I took this 12-step run and jump as the only action to affirm my existence, and I felt that I kept starting and completing these 12 steps, and there seemed to be a path ahead that led me out of hell. I always thought, just run and jump, maybe one day, suddenly my eyes will be better, I will jump out of this darkness. ”
■ Text/Selected from "Virtue Illuminates Life and Self-Improvement Volume" (Editor-in-Chief: Han Zhen Publisher: Hebei Children's Publishing House)
■ Editor / Zhang Cuiping
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