After Losing Both Legs at Four, Qian Hongyan Became China’s “Fish Girl” in the Pool

Qian Hongyan lost both legs at the age of four. A truck struck her on a road outside Zhuangshang Village in Luliang County, Yunnan. A friend died in the same accident. What remained of her body ended below the pelvis. Her family could not afford prostheses. Her grandfather cut a basketball in half, padded it with cotton, and taught her to move on her hands. Neighbours called her the “basketball girl.”

Photographs of that improvised seat circulated in 2005. Donations followed. She received prosthetic legs in Beijing and, later, a place in one of China’s first swimming clubs for people with disabilities. Balance in the water was the first problem: she compared swimming without legs to steering a boat without a rudder. Training fixed the line. By 2009 she was winning gold and silver at provincial and national meets. Media began calling her the “fish girl.”

She represented China at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, finishing ninth in the women’s 100-metre breaststroke SB5. She continued to race at national games — including a silver in the same event at the 11th National Games for Persons with Disabilities in 2021 — and competed at the 2022 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou in 2023. Off the blocks she has worked with the local disabled persons’ federation.

The accident defined her childhood. The pool did not erase it. It gave her a sport in which the missing limbs were a classification, not a stop, and a public story that began with a cut basketball and continued with a stopwatch.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Qian Hongyan”
China Daily, “For gifted athlete, disability no deterrent” (2021); earlier features on the “basketball girl”
Newsweek, “Qian Hongyan, China’s Inspirational Amputee, Goes From ‘Basketball Girl’ to ‘Fish Girl’” (2021)