Song Lingling (born 17 January 1996) is a Chinese Paralympic swimmer competing in the S6 class. She has won two silver and a gold paralympic medal.

Life

Song was born in 1996 and she lost the use of her legs due to polio.China's Song grabs 100m backstroke S6 gold in Rio
9 September 2016, Xinhuanet.com, Retrieved 12 September 2016 She took up swimming in

Shenyang Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...

in 2009 and her club coach was Li Jianhui. Her swimming hero was

Ning Zetao Ning Zetao ( or ''Níng Zétāo''; or ; born 6 March 1993) is a Chinese former competitive swimming (sport), swimmer. Specializing in the freestyle swimming, freestyle, he won a gold medal in the Swimming at the 2015 World Aquatics Championsh ...

. In 2010 at the

IPC Swimming World Championships The World Para Swimming Championships, known before 30 November 2016 as the IPC Swimming World Championships, are the world championships for swimming where athletes with a disability compete. They are organised by the International Paralympic C ...

at Eindhoven in the Netherlands she gained a silver and a bronze medal swimming freestyle and a gold medal in the 4x50m medley. At the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Gam ...

in London she won a silver medal in the SB5 100 m backstroke (S6). At the

2016 Summer Paralympics ) , nations = 159 , athletes = 4,342 , opening = 7 September , closing = 18 September , opened_by = President Michel Temer , cauldron = Clodoaldo Silva , events = 528 in 22 sports , stadium = Maracanã , sum ...

in Rio she won a gold medal in the 100m backstroke (S6). Her team mate

Lu Dong Dong Lu is a Chinese paralympic swimmer, who won gold and silver medals at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She got 38.28 seconds on 50m butterfly. At the 2020 Summer Paralympics she won four gold med ...

took the silver.Paralympics 2016: Storey clinches 12th gold as Dias thrills Rio crowd – as it happened
The Guardian, Retrieved 9 September 2016 In the 200 metres she took another silver medal after being beaten by

Ellie Simmonds Eleanor May Simmonds, OBE (born 11 November 1994) is a British former Paralympian swimmer who competed in S6 events. She came to national attention when she competed in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, winning two gold medals for Gre ...

of Great Britain. Song was at the World Para Swimming Allianz Championships in 2019 in London. She was the world record holder and she competed in the 100m backstroke S6 and took silver to the gold gained by

Verena Schott Verena Schott (born 6 March 1989) is a German paraswimmer and Paralympic medal winner. Biography Schott was born in 1989 in Greifswald. At the age of three, she and her family moved to Bennewitz, Saxony; when she was eight, she took up swi ...

of Germany. In 2020 she was at the Paralympic games in Tokyo where she competed in freestyle and breaststroke. She made the finals at several events but did not finish with a medal.

Honours

The world's largest trade union, the

All-China Federation of Trade Unions The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is the national trade union center of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest trade union in the world with 302 million members in 1,713,000 primary trade union organizations. The ACFTU ...

, gave her the National May 1st Labour Medal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Song, Lingling Paralympic swimmers for China Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Paralympics Living people 1996 births Paralympic gold medalists for China Paralympic silver medalists for China Paralympic bronze medalists for China Medalists at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics S6-classified para swimmers Sportspeople from Shandong Paralympic medalists in swimming Chinese female freestyle swimmers Chinese female backstroke swimmers Chinese female breaststroke swimmers Chinese female medley swimmers Medalists at the World Para Swimming Championships 21st-century Chinese women Medalists at the 2018 Asian Para Games