SINGAPORE – Lego has celebrated the medal wins of Singapore’s Paralympic swimmers in a way that only it can – by creating minifigures of Yip Pin Xiu and Theresa Goh.

Yip, 24, won gold in the 100m backstroke S2 event at the Rio Paralympics on Friday evening (Sept 9). Her time of 2min 7.09sec also broke two world records.

Goh, 29, won the bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke SB4 event on Sunday evening.

Lego Singapore posted a picture of the two minifigs on its Facebook page on Tuesday – each wearing their medal proudly.

We think Lego nailed the likenesses of the two swimmers.

Responses to Lego’s post have been overwhelmingly positive, with over 3,500 Facebook users “liking” it.

Goh responded personally to the post by commenting: “Hahahah oh man this is great! Thank you!!”

Rio Paralympic Games 2016: Singapore’s Para-athletes

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AFP, Reuters, The Straits Times, MCCY, Singapore Sports Council

Some users have suggested that Lego sell these figures to help raise funds to support para athletes in Singapore.

Lego had previously celebrated Joseph Schooling’s gold-medal win at the Rio Olympics by creating his record-breaking time, 50.39secs, with bricks.

sinsh@sph.com.sg

Swiss Hug Marcel picked up silver with 00.03s behind, while compatriot Saichon Konjen won additional bronze medal for Thailand after completing the distance in 3.00.86 minutes. Another Thai, Rawat Tana did not finish the race.

The victory of the 35-year-old from Sa Kaeo, who handed Thailand the first Rio Paralympic gold on Sunday in the men’s 5,000m (T54), helped Thailand meet the initial target of four gold medals set by the Thailand’s Paralympic contingent. At the previous edition of the Paralympic Games four years ago in London, Thailand also returned with a great pride after winning four gold medals.

Winning the men’s 1,500m, Prawat became the most accomplished Thai athlete with disabilities as he has already captured seven gold medals in the Paralympic Games history. Aside from the men’s 10,000m and 5,000m at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, Prawat also made much of the impact to win the men’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay events in Athens in 2004 and 5,000m in Beijing in 2008. He repeated the 5,000 feat in Rio de Janeiro last Sunday before winning the 1,500m on Tuesday.

On the same day, Thailand claimed two silver medals in fencing and archery. Wheelchair fencer Saysunee Jana, gold medallist at the 2004 Athens and 2012 London Games, lost her individual epee (Category crown) when the 42-year-old from Chiang Mai settled for the silver medal following a disappointing 10-15 loss to Chinese Zhou Jingjing in the final match.

In the archery competition, Hanreuchai Netsiri, who clinched gold medal at the 2013 World Para Championships in Bangkok, lost 3-7 to Iranian Rahimi Gholamreza in the final of men’s individual recurve (Open).

So far, the Thailand’s Paralympic contingent captured 4 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals to move up to the 19th place at the medal tally. China stay atop the standing with 63 gold, followed by Great Britain and Ukraine with 34 and 27 gold medals respectively.

Rio Paralympic Games 2016 Opening Ceremony

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AFP

Rio de Janeiro – When South African Achmat Hassiem competes in the Paralympic swimming pool he motivates himself by imagining a shark just behind – the shark that bit off half his leg a decade ago.

The fates of Hassiem and sharks have been inextricably wrapped up since that day off Cape Town when a great white caught him during a lifeguard training drill.

Then the shark almost killed him. Today the injury has propelled him into the Rio Paralympics.

And next week, having completed his third and final Games, he will start a new career: globe-trotting advocate for saving sharks from overfishing.

“My nickname is ‘shark boy.’ Everyone calls me ‘sharky’ or ‘shark boy,'” he told AFP on Tuesday after competing in the 100m freestyle.

“My brother explains to me that it sounds like a superhero title and I like to think about it like that – being a superhero.”

When Hassiem, 34, removes his prosthesis, which is emblazoned with the South African colors, and gets into the pale-blue pool, he thinks back to the moment when he took what was almost the last swim of his life.

“I actually use that fear when I race,” he said. “I imagine a 4.7 meter (15.4 foot) great white shark guiding me down the lane and pushing me to try and get out on top.”

It was August 13, 2006, and then 24-year-old Hassiem and his younger brother Tariq were playing the role of victims in a lifeguard exercise off Muizenberg beach.

While waiting to be picked up by a rescue boat, Hassiem noticed a grey triangle approach his brother.

“I thought it was a dolphin, either a dolphin or one of those seals,” he said. “I decided to look under the water.” When he resurfaced, he “screamed.” His brother was in the path of a huge shark.

Fearing the boat would not arrive in time, Hassiem began to beat on the water to draw the threat away from Tariq. The plan worked: it saved his brother.

Hassiem, though, was going to have to fight for his life.

“In just a matter of seconds I was face-to-face with a shark,” he said. Struggling to keep away from the mouth, he even tried to mount on its back, only to find that “my right leg didn’t want to come forward.”

“That’s when I saw that half my leg was in the shark’s mouth already.” The shark dragged Hassiem underwater for about 50 meters (164 feet), which, as he noted, looking into the Rio arena, “is the same length as that Olympic pool.”

Only when the shark finally severed his leg could he return to the surface, half drowned, and be pulled out.

Hassiem recovered, but his right leg was gone and so, too, his dreams of moving from a semi-professional football career to fulltime.

It was multi-medal winning South African Paralympic and Olympic swimmer Natalie Du Toit who encouraged him to try the pool. He never looked back.

“I took to the pool like a shark to the ocean,” he joked.

Rio Paralympic Games 2016 Opening Ceremony

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AFP

Hassiem competed in the Beijing 2008 Paralympics, won bronze in London 2012, and Rio will be his last.

“Now comes the crazy bit,” he laughed.

Last year he was named a Global Shark Guardian by the United Nations. “What that entails is that I work to protect sharks all over the world, sort of like an advocate or ambassador for sharks,” the tall, amiable athlete said.

Far from harbouring hatred or anger at the animal that almost took his life, he feels a sense of duty to stop the overfishing that is destroying shark populations and threatening to disrupt the ocean food chain.

“The statistics are terrible. A hundred million sharks approximately are killed a year and, you know, more humans are killed by toasters than they are by sharks,” he said.

Looking back on his remarkable turn of fortune since that terrifying encounter, he says: “I need to give back to the sharks for what they have given to me.”