Passing on the baton

Moreover, she was required to make her own way home from school with her classmates－many years later finding out that her parents were there, following her from a distance.

Jia's parents both died of cancer in 2017, and she says she still cannot shake the grief of losing them, but their education shaped her, and plays a leading role in her life.

"Living in eternal darkness, without any clear understanding of the world, I had to rely on my parents, and others by my side, to help me live like an ordinary person," says Jia.

She showed a talent for sport at primary school, and won championships in long jump and shotput, but she always envied her counterparts who were free to run at speed.

At junior high school she was introduced by a teacher to a special education school, and met other students with visual impairments. When she went to Pingxiang disabled persons' federation to apply for a disability certificate in 2002, she just happened to meet a coach who was recruiting athletes for para sports.

The meeting became a turning point in her life, taking her to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, where she began training in earnest and, more importantly, learned to run.

After just a year, she took part in the sixth national games for the disabled in 2003, and won two silver medals in running. In one of the events her final time was only 0.01 seconds slower than the gold medalist. It was her first attempt at a national-level competition, and she was soon drafted to the national team.

"My coach and teammates all cheered for me, but I was not satisfied. I thought if I had worked harder in daily training, the gold medal might have been mine. So, since then, I have trained harder, always completing many more tasks than those assigned by my coach," says Jia.