On the afternoon of December 2, the warm winter sun sprinkled on the door of Shenyang blind school. A gentle girl came down from a gray jeep. “Sister!” Her voice is clear, like a spring. Such a girl with congenital eye disease is Zhang Xiaotong, who won the women’s S11 100m breaststroke champion in Rio Paralympic Games in Brazil and broke the world record.

Zhang Xiaotong, born in 1999, lived in the dark since childhood due to congenital fundus hypoplasia. When the sports center of the Provincial Disabled Persons’ Federation went to the blind school to select team members, she was selected into the Liaoning disabled swimming team in the sixth grade of primary school because of her long body and long arms.

Set out in the dark

“I am a girl with low self-esteem.” Xiaotong said: “because my eyes can’t see, the most heard from childhood is’ you can’t ‘, so after being selected, my first reaction is that I don’t want to go.” Xiaotong sat in the sun and slowly recalled.

“What impressed me most was the first dive. Because I couldn’t see and didn’t know what it would look like to plunge into one end, I sat on the starting platform for two hours. Coach Li Jianhui also sat with me for two hours. He said to me, ‘Xiaotong, I’ll accompany you until you dare to try.’ slowly, I found that I wasn’t afraid. When I took the first step, I found that the road was not so difficult.”

Blind people can’t rely on their eyes to find direction in the pool. When learning to swim, Xiaotong often deviates from the lane and is scratched by the split water line in the pool. If his finger accidentally extends into the plastic ball of the water line, he will scrape off a piece of meat. When Xiaotong’s wound is big and small, it often appears on her life.

March bravely in the torrent

In Xiaotong’s swimming career, a special tool has been accompanying her - tip stick.

This is a long telescopic rod with a small sponge ball in front. It is an indispensable tool for the blind to swim. In ordinary swimming competitions, when athletes are about to touch the wall, they will increase their horsepower, roll forward, touch the wall, and then turn around and swim back. However, during the swimming competition for the blind, the coach will stand by the pool with a cue stick and knock the athletes with the cue stick when they are about to get to the side to prevent injury. This knocking is very important for athletes. Knocking early will affect the performance or cause game fouls, and knocking late may hurt the athlete’s head.

This requires the perfect cooperation of coaches and athletes to complete the game.

The training life of athletes is very difficult. They have to get up at 5:00 in the morning and start training. They have to complete the training plan of 10000 meters in the water one day. In winter, they even reach 20000 meters. They train day after day and never have a holiday. But the strong girl never flinched. With her tenacious willpower and hard training, she overcame the pain that ordinary people can’t imagine. She said: “only by working hard can I change my destiny. Working hard may not be successful, but giving up is doomed to failure. I don’t want to be mediocre in my life. I want to work hard. I want to realize my self-worth. I want to live my best.”

Finally, at the age of 16, Zhang Xiaotong won the champion of the National Paralympic Games and the world blind games. At the age of 17, he won the women’s S11 100m breaststroke champion at the Rio Paralympic Games in Brazil and broke the world record. In the following World Championships, Asian Games, National Games and national championships, he won many gold medals and medals, broke national records, Asian records and world records for many times, won the National May 1st Labor Model medal and the National May 4th Youth medal, and was rated as Liaoning labor model, Shenyang self-improvement model and many other honorary titles.

Reborn in suffering

For athletes, participating in the Olympic Games is the supreme goal.

However, from Rio to Tokyo, fate played a joke on her.

In August 2020, Xiaotong was found to have glaucoma, and the doctor advised her to stop training, and due to her serious condition, she had to operate immediately for enucleation.

Xiaotong really wants to participate in the Tokyo Paralympic Games. She is still practicing hard.

“Unfortunately, in June 2021, I had to remove my eyeballs and missed the Tokyo Paralympic Games in August. I was very depressed and sat in the room without saying a word every day. But one day, a sister gave me a finger piano. Suddenly, I thought the music was also wonderful. Slowly, I found that I was not so sad.” The sun shines on Xiaotong’s back, and she smiles more warmly. “Now it’s a long time since the operation. I think my life is beginning to get on track. I want to start again, adjust my mentality and continue to prepare for the next Paralympic Games.”

After that, we received a wechat message from Xiaotong, which was an audio. She played “Adilina by the water” on the piano.

She can’t see the world, but her heart is full of light.