Wang Yibo: Life outside the theater is more exciting

Wang Yibo: Writing Legends with an Ice Axe

In February 2025, Wang Yibo climbed a 60-meter ice wall unassisted with 30 kilograms of equipment on his back in the minus 20 degrees Celsius cold of the Yalong Glacier in Tibet. Every time the ice axe strikes the ice surface, the broken ice splashes in all directions, and the breath forms a white frost on the goggles. Documentary footage framed images to the whole network breathless, this is a life for the stakes of the real challenge.

Last year, he climbed to the top of the snowy peaks of Qinghai Gangshka due to lack of oxygen nearly fainted, but still hold on to take the “life photo” that triggered a hot debate. Now, this photo has become a scenic landmark, the number of tourists soared 300%. The owner of the local B&B lamented: “He climbed the mountain once, enough for us to eat for three years.”

On March 28, 2025, he was able to fall into a cliff just 10 meters away from the Ningbo Circuit after his car ran off the track. The next day, he returned to the track wrapped in bandages and won the second place in the rain. Netizens chortled, “others collapsed house he collapsed life, this session of the top stream is also too hardcore.”

Why did he insist on choosing ice climbing, an extreme sport with a mortality rate of 0.3%? The world only see the star halo, but ignored the climbers must go through the life and death moments. Perhaps, what we are chasing after is not the halo of stars, but the stubbornness of “playing a hobby to a profession” in them. When the entertainment is caught in the quagmire of fake singing, stunt doubles, and picture picking, this group of people use scars and frostbite to prove that the real top stream never needs a filter.