SINGAPORE – Four months from the Paralympics, Yip Pin Xiu received a confidence boost ahead of her title defence by claiming gold at the Para Swimming European Open Championships in Madeira, Portugal, on April 23.
The 32-year-old clocked 2min 17.20sec in the S2 100m backstroke final to touch the wall first, ahead of neutral athlete Diana Koltsova (2:31.55), Italy’s Angela Procida (2:41.64) and four other European competitors.
Despite the victory, Yip noted that her timings have not been a reflection of her training.
She told The Straits Times: “I am happy with my performance in the 100m. But I think this year hasn’t been fantastic so far because last year after the world champs, racing in Queensland and Melbourne’s World Para Swim, the timings haven’t been great.
“It was a little bit worrying because I’ve been training and I haven’t been taking it easy or anything, so there shouldn’t be a reason that I am not making my time.
“To be able to be faster at this meet, even though it’s not my best time ever, I think it really gives me a little bit of confidence that I’m on the right track.”
Yip had clocked 2:17.78 last August en route to winning her third straight women’s S2 100m backstroke title at the World Para Swimming Championships in England. She owns the world record of 2:07.09 from the Rio Paralympics in 2016.
Britain’s former Paralympic gold medallist Elizabeth Johnson, who was a co-commentator of Yip’s race in Madeira, described the Singaporean’s performance as “dominant”, adding: “She’s been untouchable in recent times and it is really about Yip Pin Xiu against the clock.”
But Yip feels that the European Open was not really a fair representation of the field at the Paralympics because “not everybody is here, so we will only really know in Paris itself but I’m very excited for it”.
Yip, who will race in the S2 50m backstroke on April 26, will also compete at the Citi Para Swimming World Series Singapore at the OCBC Aquatic Centre from May 17 to 19.
She will then head to Limoges, France, for another leg of the series from June 7 to 9, before ramping up her preparations with training camps in Sydney in July and Manchester in August.
The five-gold Paralympian will defend her S2 50m and 100m backstroke titles at the Aug 28-Sept 8 Games, which will be her fifth Paralympics.
Yip, who has a progressive nerve condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, won her first Games gold at Beijing 2008.
When asked about her objective for the S2 50m race in Madeira, she said it was simply to improve on her timing and apply the strategies that she had been working on.
She added: “It doesn’t ever get easier because things always change. You have to change your techniques, your strategies. You have to always come back to the drawing block to find the very best way to do something.”
Other Singapore swimmers in Portugal include Sophie Soon, who clocked 1:34.67 to finish sixth out of seven in the S12 100m backstroke final on April 21. She was also fifth out of six in the S12 100m breaststroke final in 1:33.32 on April 24.
