An unbreakable spirit

NPC deputy overcomes challenges to live a life dedicated to others, Fang Aiqing reports.

Wang Jiapeng, 41, is an inspirational figure who keeps encouraging people to be, what he describes as, the architect of their own life.

Wang knows how precarious life can be as he was severely injured in an air crash. Despite these injuries, he is a para cross-country skiing champion, founder of one of China's most well-known schools with an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program curriculum and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress. This is a man who lives life true to his own word.

In 1993, as a result of the crash, he was paralyzed from the waist down and he had to undergo five years of rehabilitation.

But Wang never ceased exploring the possibilities of his body, despite the pain he had to endure.

The winter of 1998-99 saw the 17-year-old regain something that he thought he had lost forever-the exhilaration of skiing on a snow-covered slope, about two kilometers long with a drop of hundreds of meters.

Wang had to use an adapted sit-ski, sitting on a chair attached to a mono-ski and using outriggers for stability. Skiing this way means that the body's center of gravity is much lower than regular skiing, and the speed can exceed that achieved by able-bodied Alpine skiers.