Li Duan, the last torchbearer at the 2022 Winter Paralympics, became the first blind person in the world to light the Paralympic flame at the opening ceremony on Friday night.

Shen Chen, director of the opening ceremony, said when he was looking at Li placing the torch in the middle of the giant snowflake-shaped cauldron, he could feel that Li was touching and feeling the whole world.

"He lit us with the flame of his heart," Shen said.

Before the opening ceremony, the working staff kept reminding Li to be careful and not get burnt by the flame. "Don't worry," Li promised. "I couldn't see the flame, but I could still feel its heat. I was holding it up, close to my face, on the right side."

Li said he wasn't doing it for himself, but for all the para athletes. "I want more people to look at us and see our spirit of working hard and making unceasing efforts to improve ourselves," he said.

Prior to his retirement, Li was one of the top Chinese para athletes. He set a new world record for the triple jump F11 event and won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.

But his athletic career began on the court as Li was a professional basketball player in the CBA and a teammate of Wang Zhizhi, one of the greatest big men.

Li lost his vision in an accident in 1996 when a fire extinguisher exploded.

"I could not help asking why the bad luck had chosen me soon after I was informed how serious the situation was. I could not believe that I had to spend the rest of my life in darkness," he recalled in a 2008 interview with the Beijing Review magazine.

When he joined the long jump and triple jump team for athletes with disability in 1998, Li had no idea how to train in his condition.

"To be honest, it was a big challenge to me. I had no idea how to train as a disabled athlete at the very beginning," he added.

In the following 14 years, he won four gold, two silver and two bronze medals in four editions of Paralympics from Sydney in 2000 to London in 2012.

When he was first told that he would be the one to light the flame at the opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Paralympics, Li had no idea how to do that either, just like when he began to practice long jump as a blind athlete.

But Li did it, in front para athletes from all over the world, on Friday night.

"Although I can't see, I want to show the world how we, people with disability, strive for our better selves," Li said.

What's his secret? "It was the same this time – practice and practice."