Records broken, going for gold: Singapore sprint queen Shanti Pereira’s year of success

SINGAPORE: Shanti Pereira cemented her reputation as one of Asia's top sprinters at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, where her blistering form carried her to a golden sprint double. 

Her 200m win on Sunday (Jul 16) was a new meet record and came on the back of her 100m victory on Friday.

The truimphs added to list of achievements that seems to be growing at breakneck speed.

Her potential was already clear during her early days on the track, but she made her first major breakthrough at the 2015 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

Winning in the 200m event, she set a new national record and ended Singapore's 42-year gold medal drought in a Games sprint event. She also finished third in the 100m.

She followed that up with two bronzes in the 100m and 200m at the 2017 SEA Games, and another two at the 2019 SEA Games.

Then at the subsequent Games held in 2022 in Vietnam, Pereira recaptured her 200m crown by erasing her own national record, and finished second in the 100m event.

It would pave the way for what has been a blistering 2023 so far. 

CNA retraces her achievements over the past few months, and what lies ahead for the 26-year-old Singaporean.

Pereira rewrote her own 100m national record in her first race of the year at the New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Wellington in March.

She did it without having raced in a competitive meet since the 2022 Commonwealth Games in August. 

Her time of 11.46s in her heat eclipsed her previous national mark by 0.02s.

Speaking to CNA at the time, Pereira described the achievement as a "very pleasant surprise".

"I wanted to go out strong and just focus on the technical aspects of it."

At the Australia Open Track and Field Championships in Brisbane, Pereira broke her national records