Qian Hongyan was four years old in Zhuangshang village, Luliang County, Yunnan, when she ran into the road to pick up a shoe. A truck hit her. A friend died. Both of Qian’s legs were crushed below the pelvis. She asked her mother to put her shoes on; her mother’s tears fell on her face.

The family could not buy prostheses. Her grandfather cut an old basketball in half, packed it with cotton and set her torso in the hollow. Wooden handles served as paddles. She moved by shifting her weight and walking on her hands. Neighbours called her the basketball girl. She wore out ball after ball getting to school.

A traffic-safety film and a reporter’s story in 2005 brought donations. She travelled to Beijing for artificial legs at the China Rehabilitation Research Center. Walking a kilometre with a pack became possible. School money later ran out; she went home at eleven.

That year the Yunnan Disabled Persons’ Federation invited her to watch para swimming in Kunming. Coach Zhang Honghu was building the country’s first club for disabled swimmers. She joined. Without legs the body yawed like a boat with no rudder. She swallowed water and hid in the changing room. The coach told her no one in the pool was looking at what was missing. She trained four hours a day, then more than 10,000 metres when the national team called.

In 2009, at thirteen, she won three golds at the Yunnan Games for the Disabled and a gold and two silvers at the national junior championships. More medals followed. At the 2016 Rio Paralympics she finished ninth in the women’s 100-metre breaststroke SB5. She did not reach Tokyo 2020. In 2021 she took silver in the same event at the National Games for Persons with Disabilities in Xi’an, in 1:51.96. She swam at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games in 2023. Press started calling her the fish girl.

She works for the Luliang disabled people’s federation when she is not in the water. Swimming, she said, is the place where she is the same as the children who used to run home after school. The basketball was a way to move. The pool was a way to choose a direction.

Sources

Wikipedia summary of Qian Hongyan’s career and 2016 Paralympic result

China Daily features on the basketball years, coach Zhang Honghu and the 2021 Xi’an silver

Newsweek profile of the shift from “basketball girl” to “fish girl”

Xinhua and Girl Museum accounts of the 2000 accident and grandfather’s basketball

Business Insider report on prosthetic fittings in Beijing