Yesterday we witnessed a fellow Singaporean won our first ever Paralympic gold medal. If winning a Olympic medal is hard, these brave handicapped atheletes achievement is even harder and worthy of our praised. As the article rightly pointed out, the Singapore National Anthem has never sounded sweeter when it was played during the prize-giving ceremony. It is sad to read that Pin Xiu's condition will worsen as she may not be able to compete in next Paralympic in London in 4 years time. To all those atheletes who compete despite the physical disadvantge, winning or lossing is not important, but the fact that they are there to participate has brought back the true spirit of Olympic Games. All of you are a true hero, to yourself and to many others whom you have encouraged. My salute to all of you.
Singaporean won first ever Paralympic gold medal . Hi Linus, What you have said it so true... The true spirit of the Olympic Games is to participate while doing one's best. It's our brave social interaction with our families, neighbours, friends, challengers, fans, etc ... Yes, the winning or losing is not important. And when a participant finds that he/she has done his/her best at the Games ... that's when it is so great. We should all celebrate with Yip Pin Xiu!!! Thank you for the article. Cheers ... chris@ccc .
Paralympian Yip Pin Xiu did Singapore proud I must confess that I know so little about the Paralympics until our newspaper headlines recently highlighted the two bronze medals won by Laurentia Tan in equestrain. Then yet again, 16-year-old Bendemeer Secondary 4 student, Pin Xiu made headlines when she broke the world record for the 50m freestlye for her S3 category in 57.04sec during the morning heats but she had to settle for silver during the finals losing out to Mexico's previous world record-holder Patricia Valle, who won in 57.05sec. Pin Xiu could only manage 57.43sec. But yesterday, Pin Xiu astounded everybody by coming in first in the backstroke event and really made Singapore proud when the country's national anthem was played for the first time in the Beijing Paralympic Games. I think it must be a most memorable gift for Singapore's first Prime Minister and now Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on his 85th birthday. The results: WOMEN'S 50M BACKSTROKE - S3 1 YIP Pin Xiu SIN 58.75 2 WILLIAMSON Fran GBR 1:06.07 3 XIA Jiangbo CHN 1:07.97 4 VALLE Patricia MEX 1:12.88 5 OVERTON Esther AUS 1:13.33 6 SHANNON Sarah RSA 1:13.83 7 CONRADI Annke GER 1:14.93 8 KOLBE Beth USA 1:17.97 Pin Xiu will be rewarded with SIN$100,000 for her gold medal achievement. So our two ladies did even better than our women Olympian table-tennis team who won a silver medal for Singapore after a 48-year drought. Laurentia and Pin Xiu amassed a total of 1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze for Singapore's best-ever showing in the Paralympics. The Beijing Paralympic Games 2008 Surprisingly the Paralympics is taken as seriously as its more famous counterpart - the Beijing Summer Olympics which was held just before this Paralympics in some of the brand new, now world-renowned stadiums such as the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. There are many countries which participated and relevant information such as the following could be found in Wikepedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Paralympics Over 4,200 athletes from 148 countries are expected to take part in 20 events. This will be the largest ever number of nations at the Paralympics (twelve more than in Athens), and several countries will be competing for the first time. The slogan for the 2008 Paralympics is the same as the 2008 Summer Olympics, "One World, One Dream" (simplified Chinese: 同一个世界 同一个梦想; traditional Chinese: 同一個世界 同一個夢想). 2008 has been a good sports year for Singapore at both the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics. I hope our young athletes, both normal and handicapped, will prepare hard for the Youth Olympics 2010, which Singapore will be hosting, as well as the London Olympics and Paralympics 2012. A chance for "One World, One Dream" to come true!
Great achievement by Yip Pin Xiu . Loh ... Linus started a thread just 2 hours before yours: click here Perhaps moderators can combine the 2 threads together. .
Thank you Dato and limsy. These achievements by our two ladies will mean a great deal to the disabled in Singapore and I'm sure the government will do more for them from now onwards.