From dump truck disaster to Tokyo Paralympics gold: China's 'Flying Fish'

From dump truck disaster to Tokyo Paralympics gold: China's 'Flying Fish'

Channel NewsAsia·2021-08-31 14:00

TOKYO: Playing in the street as a three-year-old, Jiang Yuyan's life almost ended when she was run over by a dump truck.Just 13 years later, she is rewriting swimming's record books, and on Monday (Aug 30) won her first Paralympic gold.The injuries to the fun-loving toddler were so severe that her right arm and leg were amputated, leaving her mother distraught."My good little girl was left disabled," Wang Zhifang told local media. "I thought the sky was falling. How would she spend her life?"But by the age of 14 it had become clear. Her daughter, now nicknamed "Flying Fish", was breaking world records and gaining global notoriety in the pool.And on Monday, at the tender age of 16 and the youngest member of China's powerful 256-strong team at Tokyo 2020, she fulfilled a dream by winning her first Paralympics gold medal in the S6 50m butterfly.The sensation from Shaoxing smashed her own world record in the heats at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre before storming to gold later in the final."This is my first Paralympic experience and in terms of my personal goals, it's a self-confidence boost," the teenager told AFP straight after her winning swim."Of course, it's very exciting. But most of all, I think it's the beginning of the next chapter of my life."

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