Chinese para alpine skier Sun Hongsheng, who lost his arms in an accident when he was six years old, is preparing for the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games.

His skiing career began in the autumn of 2016 with the Chinese national para skiing team. Before that, he had been a para swimmer for five years and built a first-class athletic basis.

However, skiing practice still posed tough challenges to him. For example, skiers need to use their arms to maintain balance in competition, which, unfortunately, couldn’t happen for Sun. Moreover, he has acrophobia, but alpine skiing usually takes place close to a vertical drop of hundreds of meters.

Sun was first chosen by the cross-country team but spent two days practicing indoors with the alpine team. The alpine team's coach was so impressed by the talents he displayed and decided to keep him.

An athlete can usually finish three runs in a one-day practice of alpine skiing, but Sun only completed one run in his first session because he had to stop, relax for several minutes and take a peak at the rest of the trail every time he passed by a gate. He also needed company taking the ski lift to feel safe.

Nevertheless, none of the problems lasted long thanks to Sun's determination. He managed to beat acrophobia by forcing himself to climb mountains and taking rides like roller coasters or pirate ships in amusement parks.

Sun has had other challenges to overcome. Back in 2019, he bought a train ticket for a long trip from Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province to Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. He spent days on the train looking at the outside from the window. After arriving in Guangzhou, he walked out of the train station and suddenly began to cry on the road for quite a while. Then he flew back to Harbin and resumed training.

Skiing helps him release stress, but it's not a cure. One day, Sun skipped practice and decided to talk to his coach, Dario Capelli from Italy. He told Capelli what happened to him and how he dealt with it. The coach told Sun it's okay to cry but, "you need to be able to dance when it's raining."

Sun asked the translator to tell Capelli that he would be there the following day and he would be ready. He completed a full run smoothly the next day. "I feel excited," he said.

Skiing helped Sun defeat some of his problems. He knows he has talent because the moment he steps onto the trail, he can feel which gates are difficult to reach.

"I think my best form of racing is that I don't feel anything after starting off. I'm in the zone. All I can think of are the gates and the trail," Sun said.

Having won national championships and kept the best international record of fourth place, Sun is targeting more breakthroughs at Beijing 2022.

(Top image designed by CGTN's Sa Ren)