The 23-year-old woman from Chenzhou, Hunan province, took gold in the women's J1 — 57kg category. Practicing judo for 10 years, it was her first international competition, where she transformed from a completely unknown judoka to a shining star on the world stage.

 

 

“It is the highlight in my life,” Shi says, recounting the dizzying moment, adding that it didn't feel real until she touched the shining medal.

 

“I was really nervous before the first fight. I checked out all the other competitors and the environment, but most of all, I wanted to win. That was my only thought.”

 

Her coach Li Yuehua knows how difficult it was for Shi to beat all the odds to bring home the gold. Li describes the journey as “extremely challenging”.

 

Shi defeated No 1 seed Priscilla Gagne from Canada in the semifinal and, in the final on March 14, she outclassed IBSA World Championship bronze medalist Anzhela Havrysiuk from Ukraine to secure gold for China at the Egyptian tournament.

 

As a full-contact sport, Li says, visually impaired judo is one of the most demanding and difficult sports for physically challenged athletes, because a competitor has to feel the movement, position and balance without actually being able to see their opponent clearly.

 

Now back at her judo club in Changsha, Hunan, Shi isn’t resting on her laurels. Instead, she is training, busy preparing for matches later this year. Her next competition is the national visually impaired judo championship this month.

 

The win in Egypt has boosted her confidence and brought her one step closer to her dream.

 

“My dream is to be a gold medalist at the Paralympic Games. These are my first points on the road to Paris, but my goal now is to be there and fight for gold”, she says.

 

A lesser-known sport, it is an adaptation of the Japanese martial art of judo, but for visually impaired competitors. It is also the only martial arts event in the Paralympics, being introduced for men in Seoul 1988 and for women in Athens 2004. Taking place from March 9 to 18, the 2023 IBSA Judo Grand Prix Egypt featured more than 160 athletes from over 30 countries and regions, all hoping to gather points for world rankings, paving the way to the Paris Paralympics next year.

 

 

Born in 2000 in Yongxing county, Chenzhou, Hunan, Shi gradually started losing her sight from the age of 10. With her father down the coal mine, it was her mother Wang Yanhong who accompanied her to many hospital appointments, both at home and farther afield in the provincial capital of Changsha and Guangzhou, Guangdong province. But the prognosis was always the same; doctors said it was retinitis pigmentosa, a term for a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina, which slowly loses its function.

 

At the age of 13, when taking her seventh-grade final exam, she was unable to see anything.

 

Wang remembers the call from school, saying that her daughter could not see the papers and should be taken home immediately. That was the point where the light turned into darkness for Shi.

 

Seeing her teenage daughter be inconsolable, Wang was heartbroken and worried about her daughter’s future. Every day, Wang went to the local federation for people with physical challenges to find a possible career path for Shi. Her efforts paid off when, half a year later, she got word that coach Li was coming to pick potential athletes for visually impaired judo.

 

 

In September 2013, Shi was enrolled into the Chaohui Sports Training Center for Disabled People in Changsha, hundreds of kilometers away from her home. She not only had to deal with the fear and loneliness of leaving her parents, but also the rigorous training.

 

The day started early for Shi and her teammates, who began morning exercises at 6 am.

 

Except for the five-day Spring Festival break, each day was filled by more than seven hours of training, including falling and getting up again hundreds of times.

 

“She cannot see, so any type of training is super difficult for her. Take running as an example. She has to hold another person’s hand to run,” Li says, adding that, for people like Shi, practicing a sport at a professional level means overcoming many, and various, obstacles.

 

When coaching Shi, Li will let an instructor demonstrate an action, describing the technique, and will then let Shi feel the position and angle with her hands, which helps the athlete imagine the action and imitate it.

 

According to Li, the rules for the visually impaired are the same as able-bodied judo, with one exception. Visually impaired participants start competing by gripping each other, as opposed to the off-grip technique for able-bodied competitors.

 

 

“In the first month of being there, my daughter told me over the phone that the training was too harsh, and that she couldn’t stand it. I told her to hold on another month, saying that, if the situation remained the same, I would come and bring her home,” Wang says, adding that one month later, Shi decided to persist, because she felt that she belongs at the club, where everyone is the same and works toward a simple, singular goal — to win.

 

She took to the sport quickly, placing third at the national visually impaired judo championship in 2014, winning a gold at the 10th National Games for Persons with Disabilities in 2019 in the 63kg class and bagging another at the 11th National Games for Persons with Disabilities in 2021 in the 57kg division.

 

“It was hard to be away from my family. However, the sacrifice was totally worth it. My parents supported me from the very first day”, Shi says.

 

“In the past 10 years, when I could not make a breakthrough on the judo mat, and I felt like giving up, it was my mother who encouraged me to keep trying,” Shi says, adding that it is her mother’s support that helped her to confront her fear and doubt and to achieve what she has today.

 

For a visually impaired athlete, Shi has no problem envisioning her future — to compete on the mat of the Paralympics.

 

“Together with Shi, we will go all out for every fight and help her ascend the podium at the Paralympics,” Li says.