Tibetan antelopes cross the Qinghai-Tibet Highway in a picture Gu Ying took in 2016 in Qinghai's Hol Xil. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Former paraglider stays connected to beloved sport through bird-watching, photography, Xing Yi reports.

Gu Ying was once a paragliding athlete, winning gold medals in national competitions. But now, she is a wildlife photographer, taking photos of endangered species.

In the past three years, Gu trekked to the Earth's "three poles"－North Pole, South Pole and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau－to catch a glimpse of wildlife living in the most extreme environments of the planet.

Her shots of polar bears, emperor penguins and Tibetan antelopes, and her efforts to promote public awareness of endangered animals won her the title of 2016 Chinese Culture Person of the Year, given by the Chinese Culture Promotion Society on Wednesday.

Gu was born into a military family in Beijing. Her parents worked in the air force and, when she was still a little girl, her family was relocated to a radar base in the mountains near Xuzhou, Jiangsu province.

"Sometimes I missed the school bus, and had to walk alone on the mountainous paths between home and school," recalls Gu. "I got my guts and love for nature during that period of time."

After graduating from university, Gu worked in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, and started a successful business in the late 1990s, but she never forgot about the mountains and went outdoors whenever she could.

Once, when Gu was hiking a mountain, a para-glider flew by and waved at her.