Page 14 - ABILITY Magazine - Avril Lavigne Issue

Hou Bin lighting the flame at the Paralympics opening ceremony
required climbing three-quarters of a mile on the first day of training, but the shot-put athlete had sprung ahead of Hou Bin. However, over the course of just a few days, Hou Bin improved. He explains: “After the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, we canceled all of our competitions. The shot-put athlete stopped practic- ing, but I continued.” Eventually, Hou Bin grew stronger than his shot-put rival by working out on iron bars to build his upper-body strength.
example, I prefer to jump in a diving style. I have to face my challenges and move forward, no matter what.”
The actual training sessions, however, were risky. “A pull rope could be very easily twisted,” he says. “Some- times my wheelchair became stuck at the top, and I would have to wait to be rescued.” But Hou Bin always chose to be the first one to ascend.
Without question, carrying the torch for the 2008 Para- lympic Games has been the highlight of Hou Bin’s life, thus far. After the games, the media interviewed him nonstop for a month. But then, he hit his lowest point, when his fear returned of being just another person with a disability in a society that undervalues such people.
The training camp, located outside of Beijing, was plagued by locusts and made living conditions harsh. Once, the training director, Zhang Yimou, called during practice to check on the athletes’ progress, and Hou Bin was left stranded in midair. Volunteers told the director that the athlete who was in second place, Hou Bin, was stuck and waiting to be saved. A risk taker during the 15-days of training, he eventually became the number one athlete chosen to light the cauldron.
Upon retirement from track and field, he was at a loss for a while. He knew that he needed to find a purpose beyond his disability and yearned to do something more meaningful. That opportunity arrived a few months later, when he received a phone call from a school invit- ing him to speak as an Olympic champion, but without compensation. Other Olympians had refused the deal, but as a Paralympian, Hou Bin welcomed the invitation.
When asked from where he derives his perseverance, Hou Bin reflects: “Maybe I got used to facing challenges. When able-bodied people use their backs to jump, for
“I wanted to tell them my story, so I could have every opportunity to affect their lives,” he says. The audi- ence’s applause also uplifted him. “I’d been depressed for three decades, and suddenly there was a stage that gave me the chance to speak from my heart. When I laugh, my audience laughs with me. When I cry, they cry too,” he says. In 1996, when he won his first Para- lympic gold medal in the high jump, he had to make a
Sharing His Own Story
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