Shanti sprinting for history, swimmers making a splash: What will the 32nd SEA Games hold for Team Singapore?

PHNOM PENH: One year after Team Singapore’s athletes competed at the 31st SEA Games in Hanoi, which was postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the pandemic, they will once again be back in action at the biennial sporting event.

This time, they will be in Cambodia – the first time the country is hosting the Games. Most of the sporting action will be concentrated in the capital city of Phnom Penh, with some competitions being held in other locations such as Kampot, Kep, Sihanoukville and Siem Reap.

Team Singapore will field 558 athletes across 30 sports at the Games. Cambodia will also host the 12th ASEAN Para Games after the SEA Games, with 26 athletes across six sports representing Singapore.

Here are five questions top of mind ahead of Team Singapore's Games campaign:

No Singaporean woman has done the 100m and 200m sprint double at the Games. But Shanti Pereira could well be the first.

Singapore’s sprint queen comes into the Games in a scintillating vein of form, having smashed a number of national records in March and April.

Last month, she clocked a new national record of 22.89s in the women’s 200m heats at the Australian Track and Field Open in Brisbane – the fastest timing set by an Asian woman in 2023. At the same meet, she notched a new national record of 11.37s en route to winning the women's 100m finals. That timing was the second fastest set by an Asian woman in 2023.

At the last edition of the Games, Pereira won 200m gold with a time of 23.52s, and took second behind the Philippines’ Kayla Richardson in the 100m. Richardson timed 11.60s, while the Singaporean finished 0.02s behind her.

The 2022 Games in Hanoi was a bittersweet one for Peter Gilchrist, one of the top billiards players in the world.

Gilchrist fell short of