Yip Pin Xiu, 24-year-old Singapore para-swimmer, has won a gold medal in the 100m backstroke S2 event with a world record in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games on Saturday (10 September). Making it the second gold medal won in Rio de Janeiro after Joseph Schooling’s medal in the Olympics.
Competed with 5 other swimmers at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio, Yip also broke the world record by finishing the race in just 2min 7.09sec, beating China’s Feng Yazhu (2min 18.65sec) and Ukraine’s Iryna Sotska (2min 21.98sec).
This is her second medal gold for Singapore since Yip had also won Singapore’s first Paralympic medal eight years ago when she won the (S3) 50m Backstroke. She also won silver in the (S3) 50m Freestyle that year.
Yip has since then been re-classified as an S2 swimmer as the muscular dystrophy that afflicts her advanced and progressively weakens her muscles. The International Paralympic Committee classifies S2 as swimmers who mainly rely on their arms for swimming. Their hand, trunk and leg function is limited due to tretraplegia or co-ordination problems, for example.
Yip will also be competing in the S2 50m backstroke final next week.