SINGAPORE — Just for the record, Yeo Yi Lin painstakingly pointed out, she was not afraid.

Not of the water, not of the crowd, and definitely not of the possibility of losing her race.

Why should she be afraid?

After all, the Malaysian para-swimmer had, throughout her 21 years, stared adversity in the face and not flinched one bit.

Yeo became an Internet sensation overnight after gifs of her seemingly suffering a panic attack before the start of her ASEAN Para Games (APG) race on Saturday went viral on the Internet.

At the OCBC Aquatics Centre on Saturday, while her competitors in the 400m freestyle, S9, race were already lined up, she appeared to struggle to get to the starting blocks. A delay to the start of the race ensued, and Yeo’s concerned coach came to her side and subsequently gave the “no go” to race officials.

But, with the crowd cheering her on, Yeo decided to take the plunge and completed all four laps.

“I am a little embarrassed that I have garnered so much attention. My friends started tagging me in videos and gifs of me,” Yeo — who was diagnosed with bone cancer when she was 10, and had her left leg amputated when she was 13 — told TODAY after her race yesterday.

“But I am happy that the video may have inspired people to not give up, and overcome their challenges.”

So what stopped her from racing initially? “That day, I had some intensive warm-ups with a lot of sprinting and I felt unwell,” she said. “I am still recovering from a surgery I had last August, and my left bicep and deltoid and back are still painful and sore.

“My vision got blurry, and I couldn’t really see. But I heard the crowd shouting ‘you can do it’, so I decided to go for it.”

Unbeknownst to many, Yeo exhausted herself so much that she passed out shortly after she touched the wall at the end of her race, and was immediately wheeled to the medical centre.

There was no such mishap yesterday morning, when Yeo turned up looking fresh and ready for the 50m freestyle, S9 event.

She finished eighth out of nine swimmers — not bad for someone who started training just two months ago, and incredible for someone who was told she had a slim chance of survival when she was just 15.

Before her APG adventure, Yeo was ravaged by bone cancer from the age of 10. The disease spread to her lungs two years after she had her left leg amputated, and the doctors painted a bleak picture, saying she was not going to live.

“It spread to both my lungs, in terminal stage,” she said. “So both of my lungs had a lot of tumours, and 2.6 litres of water inside, which is pushing my heart to the extreme left.”

But she lived. “The doctors said it is a great miracle that I am alive,” said Yeo, who majors in violin at the UCSI University in Kuala Lumpur, and can play five musical instruments — violin, piano, cello, guzheng and pipa.

“I don’t think all my surgeries or my condition have been really painful. I don’t know why, but I don’t feel sad too. My goal in life is to be happy, because emotions kill you.

“Look around this APG — there are a lot of people with disabilities, and they are all good at something: Swimming, archery, or something else. What I would say to others with disabilities is just don’t give up, and you too can be good at something.” ADELENE WONG