CHENGDU– On the first day of the Chengdu Universiade swimming competitions on Tuesday, many members of the Chinese team, including Olympic gold medalist Zhang Yufei and the newly-promoted world champion Qin Haiyang, breezed through the morning heats of nine events.
However, Peng Huidi was not among the elite teammates. She failed to enter the semifinals of the women’s 400m individual medley.
In the morning, almost all the attention was focused on Qin and Zhang, who returned to action only one day after the journey in the Fukuoka World Aquatics Championships.
But Liu Zhenqin, the deputy leader of the Chinese swimming team, mentioned Peng, the hearing-impaired athlete, many times. “She has strong willpower and always prepares to challenge herself. I’m really moved by her spirit.”
During the women’s 400m individual medley heat, Peng overwhelmed her two Indian rivals and clocked 5:15.49, but ranked 15th and failed to qualify.
“I’m not satisfied with myself because I didn’t show my best. The other two swimmers were slow, and I was nervous and influenced by them a little bit,” she said.
However, being able to compete in the Universiade together with Olympic champions is exciting enough for her. “It’s like a dream!” said the 19-year-old, who just celebrated her birthday with other team members in the FISU Games Village three days ago.
Born in eastern China’s Shandong province, Peng is now a freshman at Central South University. Since she was two years old, she has been hearing-impaired due to illness.
At six years old, her father led her to a swimming pool, where she showed great interest and talent in the sport, and has been on her journey to become a professional athlete since then.
It was not easy at the beginning. She couldn’t hear what the coach said, and her language ability was not as good as other children. The little girl then didn’t complain or give up but tried her best to figure out what the coach said through watching her lips and gestures. She even dived into the pool’s bottom to see how other children swam.
After entering high school, she balanced swim training and school learning well. Before each competition, she had to train every day at a place 35km away from school.
To ensure she didn’t miss too many lessons, her father drove her back to school from the training center each day, even though she was exhausted.
“She is excellent but with a low profile. Everyone likes her cute personality,” said Liu. When Peng went to take training for competitions, her classmates all volunteered to record videos of lessons for her.
With her own efforts and others’ help, Peng soon stood out in national-level games. Despite suffering from torn ligaments and dislocation of bones in one hand, she grabbed seven golds and one silver in swimming at the 11th National Games for Persons with Disabilities when she was 17.
The highlight moment in her career showed how strong her willpower is. Before the competition, her parents and doctor persuaded her to give up and undergo an operation, but she refused. To relieve her pain, the doctor fixed her injury with a tailored splint and adjusted it before each competition. After finishing all games, she gave one gold medal to the doctor as a birthday present.
To Peng, however, the honor then was dwarfed by her qualifying for the Universiade. “That was a game for the disabled, but at the Universiade, I can compete with the top athletes worldwide. It’s more exciting!”
“She never stops challenging herself. During the training before the Games, she practiced so hard and broke her personal best records,” Liu said.
On Friday, Peng is going to compete alongside Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Li Bingjie in the women’s 1,500m freestyle on behalf of China. As for her aim, Peng is modest. “I hope I can successfully finish it.”
Being hearing-impaired makes it even harder for her to break down the bottleneck, and she is not sure how far she could reach.
“The thing I’m quite sure of is that I will go on swimming,” said Peng.