Finally, Sophie earns P.B.

Despite putting in endless hours of hard work and training in the past three years, swimmer Sophie Soon just could not get quicker in the pool.

The 25-year-old finally got a breakthrough at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira, Portugal on Wednesday as she clinched a silver in the women's 100m breaststroke SB12.

What was even more rewarding about her first medal at the world meet was her Asian record of 1min 25.89sec, a personal best after those years of toil.

Her result at the Penteada Olympic Swimming Complex in Madeira, Portugal, eclipsed the previous Asian mark of 1:26.18 set by China's Cong Rui in 2004.

Soon finished behind Brazil's three-gold Paralympian Maria Carolina Gomes Santiago (1:14.91), with South Africa's Cornelle Leach taking the bronze in 1:28.60.

She said: "It's definitely an honour to win a medal at the world championships.

"It was never really in the plan to do so, it was a dry spell for me for about three years not being able to get any personal bests and a lot of hard work with unfortunately no results coming.

"To finally get a personal best, that was the main thing that we were all celebrating, and winning a medal was a nice cherry on top of that."

The silver was Singapore's second medal at these championships, with Yip Pin Xiu bagging a gold in the women's 100m backstroke S2 event on Tuesday.

Soon, who is visually impaired and made her Paralympics debut in Tokyo last year, said that refining her technique was key to her improved performance at the world meet, where she also achieved two personal bests in her other two events - the 100m backstroke S12 and 50m freestyle S12.

She said: "I've been working on... a lot of technique refinement over the past year, also with biomechanics sessions, filming, strokes and analysing and looking at the best stroke efficiency for myself. There were a lot of things that we took into account."

While she was pleased with how the meet went, Soon noted that the next Paralympics were the ultimate goal for her.

She added: "Definitely for this race it went well. Of course there's a lot more to work on and refine as we make our way towards Paris 2024."

After her breakthrough at the world championships, she will next feature at the July 30-Aug 6 Asean Para Games in Solo, Indonesia. But before she gets back into the training pool, there is one task high on her agenda when she returns home from Portugal.

Having been away from home for the past fortnight, Soon is going to indulge in her favourite local food.

She said: I'm going back home to drink my milo peng (iced milo). I really miss local food. It's been a while since I've been back home.

"Definitely, I'll have a short diet break for a while before going back to training again."