One-legged cyclist challenges Tour of Qinghai Lake

Sitting on the ground with his bike aside, the amateur cyclist Wang Yonghai looks a bit tired after paddling over Lachi Mountain which is 3,800 meters above the sea level.

With tanned skin and bright red outfit, Wang looks like one of the many riders on the road. However, his only one leg showed the difference - that is all he has got to cycle.

Wang lost his left leg in a car wreck at the age of 19. The tragedy did not put out his dream to pursue his life. He started to make a living by driving a pedicab.

"I knew that my life could become more miserable if I just gave up," said Wang. "I made up my mind to fight."

In 2002, after watching a training session of a cycling team for disabled people, Wang was deeply attracted to the sport. In the same year, the Tour of Qinghai Lake was inaugurated in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Since then, Wang started cycling for, as he put it, the meaning of life. In the past six years, Wang took part in a number of races all over China and won quite a few prizes. "My bike has become the leg that I have lost," he said with a smiling face. ( For the 12th Tour of Qinghai Lake, Wang traveled all the way from Shandong Province to Xining, capital of Qinghai, to challenge the race as an amateur.

Covering a total distance of more than 2,000 kilometers, Qinghai race is considered to be a top level road cycling event in Asia. Professional riders are required to finish 13 stages within 14 days.

Without a support team or a sponsor, Wang took off alone. Sticking to the same route as designed for the race, Wang has bumped four times into the near-150 competing cyclists from across the world. "It has always been exciting to see them," Wang said.

He admitted that sometimes he was scared when there was nothing ahead but the endless grassland, thick fog and freezing wind.

"All I could feel was loneliness, but no matter how hard it will be, I must make it to the end," Wang told the reporter at the summit of Guanjiao Mountain that is 3,847 meters above the sea level.