SINGAPORE - Yip Pin Xiu rewrote the world record for the 200m freestyle S2 classification twice in eight hours at the Australian Short Course Championships on Wednesday (Aug 24).
The five-time Paralympic champion had first smashed the previous best of 6min 28.58sec, held by Spain's Sara Carracelas since March 2007, with a 5:00.99 time in the 200m free multi-class preliminary race on Wednesday morning.
The world record had stood for 15 years, in part because races are more commonly held in the long-course format. Besides, this event for the S2 category is not contested at the Paralympics and has not been held at the world championships since 2010.
In the event's final in the evening at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, Yip then lowered the mark to 4:57.81.
The world record is the 30-year-old Singaporean's latest, and adds her leading times in the S2 50m and 100m backstroke (long course) events.
She said: "I was really looking forward to this meet as there was no opportunity for me to swim at the Asean Para Games and the Asian Para Games was postponed to next year.
"This meet caps my season, and it is the first short course meet in my 18-year career. It has given me the chance to review and create short-course strategies, such as more efficient turns.
"A 200m short-course swim takes seven turns, so every turn has to be effectively delivered for good timings. Being able to break the world record is an icing on the cake. I have three more events coming up and would be looking forward to producing more good timings, and really, just racing well."
Another Singaporean, Danielle Moi, also competed in the 200m multi-class final and clocked 2:39.86.
Moi is classified for the S14 events - the lower number indicates a greater degree of impairment - and finished last out of nine swimmers.
Final placings in the race are determined by the multi class point score system, developed by Swimming Australia, which uses a calculation to correlate scores across classifications. Going by this system, Yip won the gold medal in the race.
Moi later took bronze in the 50m butterfly multi-class final.
Other national swimmers in action Down Under include Darren Chan (S14) and Wong Zhi Wei (S13), who will compete in the 200m free and 50m fly multi-class events.
There was also joy for Singapore para sports in shooting on Wednesday, as Daniel Chan finished fourth in the men's 10m air pistol SH1 with a score of 193.4 at the World Shooting Para Sport World Cup in Changwon, South Korea.
