Team China for the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics was officially founded on Feb 21.

Among the 217 members of the national team are three Zhejiang-raised athletes, namely Wang Xinyu and Yang Jian from Ningbo and Li Panpan from Hangzhou.

They will be the first Zhejiang athletes to attend the Winter Paraympics, as winter sports are much less popular in the country's subtropical southern provinces like Zhejiang than they are in Northeast China, which usually account for the bulk of Team China at the Winter Paraympics.

Wang, born in August 2001, is a female snowboarder. She had to have her left calve amputated due to an accident at the age of six.

Wang joined the national snowboarding team in 2018 and won a gold medal for Team Zhejiang at the 10th National Games for Persons with Disabilities a year later, which was the first gold claimed by Zhejiang at winter sport contests in the games. She also bagged one silver and one bronze at the 11th National Games for Persons with Disabilities in 2021.

Yang was born in June 1993 without a left forearm. A former cyclist who has claimed two golds, three silvers, and two bronzes in national contests, Yang got into snowboarding on Team Zhejiang in 2018 and managed to qualify for the national team in 2019. He won one silver at an Asian contest for snowboarding in 2020.

Li Panpan, born in March 1992, has been wheelchair bound her whole life. She practiced archery and then cycling for Team Zhejiang before entering the national team for cross-country skiing. She won one bronze at the 10th National Games for Persons with Disabilities and another bronze at the 11th games.