Singapore’s Yip Pin Xiu has broken the IPC World Record in the S2 Women’s 50m backstroke on the final day of competition at the 2015 ASEAN Para Games.
At the multi-sport event, hosted in Singapore, Xiu won one of the most competitive races of the meet int he last session for a gold medal. The race was a combined S2-S5 classification race, and she swam 1:01.61 to beat Vietnam’s Thi Den Nguyen by .02 seconds. That was Yip’s first and last gold medal of the meet, though she did take silver in the 50 and 100 meter freestyles.
In the process, Yip also broke the World Record of 1:03.00 that was done by China’s Yazhu Feng at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.
The 50 backstroke is on the Paralympic lineup for 2016 for swimmers in the S2 class (not all events are offered for all classes), and Yip now becomes a prohibitive favorite after being reclassified into the S2 category (which would come with at least a S$200,000 cash prize from her home country). She competed last summer as an S3 at the World Championships, and placed 4th at that meet in 59.49.
Yip began her career as a swimmer in the S5 category when she was 12, and has since been moved down twice. She was a long-time fixture in the S3 category, though, including winning gold at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing in the 50 back and silver in the 50 free.