Going downhill fast, and quickly gaining respect
Ji Lijia said he hopes he can become a coach for able-bodied snowboarders one day, because he believes he would be just as good as an able-bodied athlete.
When the Hebei province native and member of China’s paralympic snowboarding team was just 5 years old, he lost his left hand after accidentally putting it in an industrial mixer.
Now, he uses an artificial hand to use gym equipment or push the handles on the starting gate to pick up the speed that is crucial for the snowboard cross competition.
The 19-year-old started snowboarding in 2016 simply because “it looked cool”. “I am passionate about snowboarding, otherwise I would not be here now,” said Ji, who joined the national team in 2018.
In 2019, he won a gold medal in the men’s snowboard cross race SB-UL class at the World Para Snowboard Championships in Pyha, Finland.
“When the foreign athletes called out my name to celebrate my victory, I felt so proud of myself. I will never forget that feeling,” he said.
“The harder you work, the luckier you will become” is Ji’s favorite saying. He has clocked up more than 400 hours on the training course and another 400 in the gym since October, when the team started training in Chongli district, Zhangjiakou, Hebei, co-host of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics.
“I can tell that I have made obvious progress in perfecting the techniques to make turns and jumps after the training,” he said with pride.
His idol is Pierre Vaultier, a French snowboard cross star who won gold medals at the Winter Olympics in 2014 and 2018. Ji studies Vaultier’s technique by repeatedly watching footage of his competition rides.
“I know I will have to work extra hard to snowboard like him one day, but nothing is impossible. Like Vaultier, I love the sense of freedom that snowboarding gives me. Such a feeling is even more valuable for people with disabilities,” he said.
In addition to training with his teammates, Ji enjoys riding with athletes from China’s Olympic snowboarding team, which is also training in Chongli.
“I don’t think I am different from them, and they never treat me differently. We just try to overcome the same difficulties together. I think that’s the way to be, not just in sports but in life overall,” he said.