, who suffered severe spinal injuries while practicing for a meet in New York last July, toured the United Nations in a wheelchair on Friday before flying home at the weekend, Reuters reported. Escorted by her country's U.N. ambassador, Qin Huasun, she sat behind China's nameplate in the Security Council chamber and managed to lift the gavel wielded by council presidents.
Sang Lan, who will be 18 in June, was injured during a warm-up for last summer's Goodwill Games.
Paralysed from the neck down, she has since undergone an operation and extensive therapy, regaining some strength in her shoulders, arms and wrists.
Dressed in a black pants suit and trailed by a throng of U.N. staff, reporters and photographers, she had her picture taken in the U.N. Delegates' Lounge near a huge tapestry of the Great Wall of China. She then viewed an elaborate ivory carving of a section of the Chengtu-Kunming railway. Both are gifts from China to the United Nations.
As part of a disarmament exhibit, Sang Lan was shown a display of flame-seared relics of the atom-bombing of Japan in 1945.
Speaking through an interpreter, she told questioners she regarded the United Nations as symbolising world peace.
Referring to a visit she paid earlier this week to an aircraft carrier in New York harbour now used as a museum, she said she hoped all such carriers would be turned into museums.
Last Dec. 31, Sang Lan was chosen to press a button in New York's Times Square to start the descent of a giant ball that traditionally marks the arrival of the New Year.
She was accompanied on her U.N. tour by her mother, Chen Xiu Feng, and by a Chinese American couple, K.S. Liu and his wife, Gina, who were appointed as her guardians in New York by the Chinese Gymnastic Association.
Sang Lan, who flies home on Sunday after visiting Detroit, said she would continue her therapy in Beijing and continue her education with a tutor, particularly in computer studies.
``I would like to express my thanks to all those people who have helped me,'' she said.
Sang Lan: Determination, infectious optimism in a broken body (1999-12-18)Sang Lan Returns to China (1999-05-24)Sang Lan tours UN during U.S. tour (1999-05-23)Paralyzed Gymnast's Aide Robbed in NYC (1999-02-17)Paralyzed Gymnast Gets OK To Go Home (1999-02-03)
