NPC deputy overcomes challenges to live a life dedicated to others, Fang Aiqing reports.

Wang Jiapeng, 41, is an inspirational figure who keeps encouraging people to be, what he describes as, the architect of their own life.

Wang knows how precarious life can be as he was severely injured in an air crash. Despite these injuries, he is a para cross-country skiing champion, founder of one of China's most well-known schools with an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program curriculum and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress. This is a man who lives life true to his own word.

In 1993, as a result of the crash, he was paralyzed from the waist down and he had to undergo five years of rehabilitation.

But Wang never ceased exploring the possibilities of his body, despite the pain he had to endure.

The winter of 1998-99 saw the 17-year-old regain something that he thought he had lost forever－the exhilaration of skiing on a snow-covered slope, about two kilometers long with a drop of hundreds of meters.

Wang had to use an adapted sit-ski, sitting on a chair attached to a mono-ski and using outriggers for stability. Skiing this way means that the body's center of gravity is much lower than regular skiing, and the speed can exceed that achieved by able-bodied Alpine skiers.

After two weeks of intense training, which saw him continuously fall and roll over, or get thrown into the snow, in March 1999, Wang participated in the Ridderrennet, or the Knight's Race－an annual cross-country ski race for the visually and physically challenged－held in Beitostolen, Norway.

He won two gold medals for China. These were for the men's 10km cross-country skiing and biathlon, which involves cross-country skiing and target shooting.

At that time, Wang was studying with a full scholarship at the United World College Red Cross Nordic in Norway as the school's first student from the Chinese mainland. UWC is an international network with 18 schools and colleges worldwide for students aged 15 to 19 to study an IBDP curriculum.

It all started when his headmaster Tony Macoun asked whether he would like to join his classmates skiing or stay with a host family for Christmas. Wang's answer helped him overcome any psychological barriers concerning the physical challenge. He also learned canoeing there.

His arm strength, accounting for the rapid progress he made in skiing, benefited from frequent swimming during his rehabilitation. He had been with the national swimming team for people with physical challenges for three years. He was proud of his ability to do hundreds of pull-ups at a time.

Wang underwent painstaking rehabilitative training to stand again and to be able to walk with the aid of crutches. In those gloomy adolescent days, without classmates to encourage him, Wang saw the physical exercise as a ray of "sunlight" to relieve psychological pressure.