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Xiao Long (top, left) works with a fellow Special Olympics China on his basketball skills, and (bottom, second from left) poses with friends. |
Special Olympics China athlete Liang Bao Long — Xiao Long for short — devotes a remarkable amount of time and energy to Special Olympics as both an athlete and a coach.
Xiao Long, which translates to “Little Dragon” in English, is anything but little in both his size and his love of sports. Nearly six feet tall, he tends to tower over most people — which is usually an advantage when he plays his favorite sport, basketball. Xiao Long has been training for years to compete in just about every sport Special Olympics China offers its athletes. For the last several years he has been focusing on basketball.
In addition to cultivating his own skill as an athlete, Xiao Long devotes time and energy to give other students with mental disabilities the chance to feel the thrill of competition. Since 1995, Xiao Long has assisted students at Beijing’s Chongwen Special School —where he was a student from 1984–93 — and works with the head coach, Zhang Yu Cai, who also is his mentor.
Zhang saw in Xiao Long a very talented athlete with a good grasp of the rules of sports as well as a knack for teaching others. Xiao Long assists Zhang in coaching the floor hockey teams by working one-on-one with students requiring special attention.
Xiao Long believes that one of the most important aspects of coaching is to ensure the safety of the athletes. He also thinks that patience and constant repetition of individual skills is essential.
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