Timeline: How Singapore swimmer Yip Pin Xiu blazed a trail to successive Paralympic glory

SINGAPORE: Already one of Singapore’s most legendary athletes, swimmer Yip Pin Xiu added another feather in her cap with a gold medal in the women’s 50m backstroke S2 event on Sunday (Sep 1).

It was her second gold of the Paris Paralympics, and her seventh overall since making her Games debut in 2008.

She has also scored a historic three-peat of Paralympic golds in the 50m and 100m backstroke S2 events, emerging champion in both at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 editions.

CNA traces the 32-year-old’s journey.

Yip was born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which causes the progressive loss of muscle tissue and touch. 

As a child, she had to wear an ankle foot brace, leading to people staring at her on the street.

In school, some classmates would ostracise and even throw things at her while teachers turned a blind eye. 

"Primary 1 to Primary 4 was a bit tough because when kids are younger, they don't know how to react to different people. As long as somebody is different from them, they treat them differently," she said in a podcast last year.

"I had to go through different things, but because of all this, it made me really tough."

Things were slightly better in Primary 5 and 6 with some friends who made sure she felt included, Yip recalled.

She then became wheelchair-bound from about 12 years old.

In the water, however, she felt free.

Yip’s first introduction to the pool was at age 6, when her two older brothers Alvin and Augustus were taking lessons at a Kallang swimming complex.

"It wasn't until I found swimming that I truly found myself," she has said.

In 2004, she was talent-scouted by a volunteer from the Singapore Disability Sports Council, and began to swim competitively.

Her first competitive meet - the national junior para