One-legged student inspires netizens with basketball skills

Qu Shitao became known as the “Inspiring Basketball King” (“励志篮球帝”) after a video surfaced of him playing basketball despite having just one leg. The video first became hot on Sina Weibo and then was reported on by a number of television stations across the country, including CCTV.

Here is Shanghai Tevelision Station’s news report on Qu from the morning of November 16:

On the basketball court at Jiangxi’s Donghua University of Science and Technology, people often see a very unique basketball player. He just has one leg. Recently, videos of him playing basketball have made their way onto the web. This young man has been dubbed “Inspiring Basketball King.”

Since then, Qu has remained in the spotlight. He met with Yao Ming recently and was surprised by his newfound fame. According to QQ Sports:

A few days ago, Qu Shitao told a reporter over the telephone that when he went to Shanghai and met with Yao Ming, people had come from thousands of miles a way to hear him speak. He had never imagined that his dream would become a reality like this.

This was the first time Qu Shitao went on an airplane. Because of his body, he never had an opportunity to go on a long trip before. He feared that his crutches and his artificial limb would not make it through the security check, so he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his luggage slowly coming through on the conveyer belt.

After he boarded the plane, there was also a funny story. When the plane encountered turbulence, it was the first time he had experienced this circumstance, so he was very nervous. His teacher who went along with him said, “At that time, Qu Shitao firmly grabbed the armrest. I could see on his forehead that he was really sweating. Then the plane stabilized, and he was fine.”

After two days had passed, Qu was still quite in awe of the whole experience. “Shanghai, walking around here, like I said earlier, today was an amazing day. Thank you to Big Yao for caring about me! Sad to say goodbye!!!” Those were his comments before leaving on Tencent Weibo. It was his first time to go to Shanghai and his first time to see a CBA competition.