Riding high in Qinghai

A natural paradise in Northwest China is reaping the benefits of sports — both on and off the field of play

Once known as "a faraway fairyland" in Northwest China's Qinghai province, now it is a sports wonderland and boasts the nation's first Tibetan Olympic champion, Qieyang Shijie.

Even when she is thousands of miles away from home, images of the idyllic area are never far from race walker Qieyang's mind — herds of cattle and sheep wandering around the prairie, with the voice of nature the only sound in the midday sun.

Qieyang was born in 1990 into a local herder's family in Haiyan county, in northeastern Qinghai's Haibei Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Her athletic potential was discovered at a local sports meet.