{"id":731461,"date":"2026-06-12T08:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731461\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:26:10","slug":"one-legged-china-teen-boy-dreams-of-basketball-glory-practising-with-a-crutch-made-by-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731461\/","title":{"rendered":"One-legged China teen boy dreams of basketball glory, practising with a crutch made by dad"},"content":{"rendered":"

A one-legged teenage boy from a mountainous village in southwestern China has gone viral on social media for excelling at basketball using a wooden crutch handmade by his father.<\/p>\n

The story of the 13-year-old boy, nicknamed Apei, was first shared by an influencer under the handle @awenzaidajiating in late May, garnering one million likes.<\/p>\n

On June 5, the boy finally was able to wear an artificial limb which was tailor-made in Shenzhen, also in southern China, and donated by the charity Shenzhen Project Care Foundation, according to the Shenzhen Press Group.<\/p>\n

\"Apei,Apei, above, weaves some magic on the basketball court using the crutch his father made. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n

Apei lives in a village in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, which is one of the most impoverished regions in China.<\/p>\n

At the age of four, when he went alone to look for his mother who was doing farm work on the mountain, a big rock slid down and crushed his right leg to the extent that it had to be amputated.<\/p>\n

Apei said at first no children liked to play with him for fear of pushing him and making him fall down.<\/p>\n

He then became interested in playing basketball. He moves freely with the wooden crutch made by his father which is bound to his trousers.<\/p>\n

\"AA prosthetic limb expert measures up Apei for his artificial leg. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A one-legged teenage boy from a mountainous village in southwestern China has gone viral on social media for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[27619,64,63,237376,726,1293,17405,9659,32140,512,4690,10830,22279,84562,18934,2458,7110,87701,354057,92383,1461,13301,354065,98250,31367,32893,32671,1852,187437,5284,42646,153447,87987,354062,354059,74017,9277,354056,37912,16496,44853,354055,22952,354053,445,354066,354054,33372,122274,40555,354061,13433,127241,1314,155126,588,85,354064,354058,46206,276134,354063,354060,12655,4050,79706,98338,5586,6624],"class_list":["post-731461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-artificial","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awesome","tag-basketball","tag-body","tag-boy","tag-captain","tag-care","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-companies","tag-competition","tag-crutch","tag-dad","tag-data","tag-disability","tag-disabled","tag-donated","tag-dreams","tag-eating","tag-employee","tag-encourage","tag-enterprises","tag-farm","tag-father","tag-foundation","tag-games","tag-glory","tag-gold","tag-handmade","tag-hometown","tag-homework","tag-idol","tag-impoverished","tag-influencer","tag-jersey","tag-limb","tag-meals","tag-medal","tag-mother","tag-mountainous","tag-mvp","tag-one-legged","tag-online","tag-paralympic","tag-practise","tag-professional","tag-prosthetic","tag-residents","tag-rura","tag-shenzhen","tag-sichuan","tag-social-media","tag-spare-time","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-suggestions","tag-tailor-made","tag-tears","tag-thrilled","tag-trended","tag-trousers","tag-village","tag-viral","tag-warm","tag-wishes","tag-wooden","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}