But it was not so much how she finished her race that had people talking. Rather, it was how she started it.

She plunged into her 50m freestyle (S5 category) heat swimming the breaststroke instead of the faster front crawl - like all but one of her competitors.

Under Fina rules, swimmers may swim any style in freestyle, except in the individual medley or medley relay events, where freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly.

Yesterday, using the breaststroke, Goh clocked 53.67 seconds and failed to qualify for the final of her fourth and last race.

Had the 21-year-old swum the front crawl, she could have made the last eight if she had clocked a time close to the 43.55sec she did in April during a qualifying trial in the United States.

But the swimmer and coach Ang Peng Siong decided on Sunday that she would end her Beijing outing with a good breaststroke swim after missing out on a bronze in the 100m breast (SB4) final last Friday.

The world record holder in the 50m (52.94sec) and 200m (4min 17.38sec) breast in the SB4 category, she had been tipped to win a medal.

Swimming in breaststroke for the 50m freestyle race was, therefore, a strategy for 'mental closure', said Goh.

She said: 'We knew even if I did a new world record for the 50m breaststroke, I wouldn't have qualified for the freestyle final, but I wanted to do a proper breaststroke race.

'I was more relaxed today than on Friday and I made sure my strokes were deeper and not rushed, unlike then.'

She had been shaken by Friday's performance, but has accepted the outcome.

'It's not been the perfect outing, but it was the best I could give at each particular time,' said Goh, who was fourth in the 200m free (S5) and sixth in the 100m free (S5). She also set two national records.

'Besides that 100m breast, I think I did pretty well, slicing seconds off my best times for the earlier freestyle races.'

SIM CHI YIN