Chinese para snowboarder Ji Lijia shot to fame after he claimed the top position in global ranking in January 2020. He dominated the World Para Snowboard Rankings for 14 months, from January 2020 till February 2021. Italy's Jacopo Luchini surpassed him from March to June this year, but Ji raced back to the top in July to share the No. 1 slot with Luchini.

At the age of 17, Ji won the gold medal in men's snowboard cross race SB-UL class at the World Para Snowboard Championships in Pyha, Finland in 2019.

"When the foreign athletes called out my name to celebrate my victory, I felt so proud of myself. I will never forget that feeling," he said in an interview with China Daily in March.

Ji lost his left forearm in an accident involving an industrial mixer when he was 5 years old. However, this deficiency failed to dampen his passion for sports and fitness. He was selected into a local winter sports team in north China's Hebei Province in 2016.

Ji said he got curious about snowboarding because "it looked cool," but then he fell in love with the sport after trying it.

"I use a special hook to attach to my upper limb so that I can pull up the dumbbell," Ji said in an interview with Hebei.com in August.

"Bouncing, tumbling and turning postures are part of my routine training. Falls and injuries are unavoidable to athletes and they may add difficulties for us para-athletes," Ji said. 

"In training along with snowboarders, I don't think I am different from them, and they never treat me differently. We just try to overcome the same difficulties together. I think that's the way to be, not just in sports but in life overall."

"The harder you work, the luckier you will be," reads Ji's Weibo profile, giving an insight into his approach towards sport.

Ji said his ambition is to win a gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics and he is working hard to be a snowboarding coach in future.