SINGAPORE — In the past week, para-swimmer Theresa Goh’s national teammate and best friend Yip Pin Xiu has been making waves in the pool, setting two world records and two Asian records at the IPC Swimming European Open Championships in Funchal, Portugal.

While the limelight is all on Yip, Goh has quietly gone about her business, setting a new Asian record en route to earning a bronze in her pet event in the 100m breaststroke SB4, clocking her first sub-2min timing (1min 59.90s) in nine years.

For the most senior of Singapore’s para-athletes — with a career that spanned 16 years and 27 ASEAN Para Games gold medals — however, the accolade on the world’s biggest sporting stage has so far eluded her. The closest the 29-year-old got was in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, where she came in fourth in the 100m breaststroke SB4 (2 min 1.99s). In that year, she held the world record for the 50m and 200m breaststroke events, and was ranked second and third in the world respectively in the 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley.

But the three-time Paralympian feels that the tide has changed, and her chance to end that Paralympics drought may have come.

“I feel that now is the time for me to go all out, and I am at the point where I feel really good about my progress,” she told TODAY at Changi Airport on Monday (May 9) after a 28-hour flight back home from Funchal.

“It’s such a long career, and it has been a struggle sometimes, and I have wondered if I should continue. The desire was there in the beginning and, after a few years, it got doused. But, recently, it has been stoked because of a few factors: Like having a new coach (Mick Massey from February last year), and a new team (of sports scientists).

“Getting that spexScholarship (in December 2014) also helped because I feel people are believing in me by supporting me with funds.

“My results were pretty stagnant for a few years from 2009-2012. While I want to say I feel most confident of a Paralympics medal now, but it’s also hard for me to say for sure.”

Coach Massey, who used to coach the British Paralympic swim team, agrees that this could be Goh’s year to win her first Paralympics medal. “When I took on this job, I was asked if I could take Theresa into the (Paralympics) final. Since then, she has improved by over 12 seconds (in the 100m breaststroke SB4),” he said. “I think she has got a real chance for a Paralympics medal. But it’s going to be really tough, because her competitors are all so close (in standards).

“Maybe, over the past three years, Theresa has been living in the shadows of Pin Xiu. But now, she has actually stepped out of the shadow, and she wants the limelight as well. Whether she makes the podium or not (in Rio), I know she is going to give everything she got.”

Massey added: “(Coaching Goh) is one of the most satisfying things in my whole career. She is 29, and she wasn’t really going anywhere (with her swimming) 15 months ago. If we can sneak that (Paralympics) medal in the breaststroke event, it would be massive.”