Song Lingling

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. She took up swimming in Shenyang in 2009 and her club coach was Li Jianhui. Her swimming hero was Ning Zetao. In 2010 at the IPC Swimming World Championships 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 in London she won a silver medal in the SB5 100 m backstroke (S6).

At the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio she won a gold medal in the 100m backstroke (S6). Her team mate Lu Dong took the silver. In the 200 metres she took another silver medal after being beaten by Ellie Simmonds 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 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, gave her the National May 1st Labour Medal.