National para-shooter and Paralympian Daniel Chan was relatively calm after a dominant display on his ASEAN Para Games debut on Friday (Jan 23) morning. With a score of 229.1, Chan cruised to gold in the men’s 10m air pistol SH1 final – his first major Games medal after a fifth-placed Asian Para Games finish in 2023.
But the 37-year-old was left in awe during the women’s final on Friday (Jan 23), where teammate and former Paralympic swimmer Theresa Goh fired her way to gold in only her second final as a shooter.
Registering 220.0 after 24 shots and outlasting the seven-athlete field, Goh’s “crazy” gold-winning feat, achieved just a year after taking up the sport, left her more senior teammate in disbelief.
Goh finished fourth in qualification with 536 and sat fourth after 16 shots as the final entered the shoot-off phase. Nerves of steel helped her to make inroads as the final wore on, with a 10.0 on the 20th shot, combined with a wayward 6.8 by Indonesian rival Triyanti, catapulting Goh to provisional top spot.
Holding on to first with her remaining four shots, Goh said, “I was just trying to go through it one shot at a time. I knew that if I was wondering what was going on in the other lanes, I would have lost it.”
Her achievement also ignited a party atmosphere at the 80th Birthday Stadium shooting range, where Singapore’s para-cycling and wheelchair rugby athletes were among those in attendance to cheer her success.
“It’s amazing. I rarely get to see them when I was competing in the pool. Because once you come out of the pool, you can’t really go to see the spectators. But now in the range, I am able to see all these people who came to support the team and be present for Team Singapore. It’s really nice and heartwarming. It shows that we’re all here for each other.”
Goh, whose illustrious career began in the pool at the 1999 National Swimming Championships and later took her to Paralympic glory, was no stranger to the podium.
But the 28-time ASEAN Para Games champion in swimming thoroughly savoured her first shooting gold.
“Every gold is amazing… shooting is so different, I am aware of everything. In the pool, I cannot really hear the crowd,” said Goh, who could hear the cacophony of cheers over her earplugs. “I’m just really excited for next time and for what’s to come.”
And she will return to the range a day later with Chan to compete in the mixed P6 team 10m air pistol SH1, where the pair can add to their tally.
“We just need to do what we do normally,” Chan said.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s other representative in the women’s final, Shannon Heng, finished sixth with a score of 141.7.
