It’s an understatement to say that Singaporean sprint queen Shanti Pereira is having a good 2023.
In fact, superlatives seem to have long become useless to describe her feats of breaking national records over and over again.
Her latest achievement is winning gold in the 100m event at the Asian Athletics Championships.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
In the process, she — you guessed it — broke a national record again.
Shanti was competing in the Women’s 100m event at the Asian Athletics Championships on Friday (14 July).
At the Suphachalasai National Stadium in Bangkok, she came in first in the final with a sizzling time of 11.20 seconds, according to Singapore Athletics (SA).
This was some 0.19s faster than her nearest challenger, Iran’s Farzaneh Fasihi (11.39s), reported The Straits Times (ST).
China’s Ge Manqi took the bronze with a time of 11.40s.
Source: Asian Athletics Championships on YouTube
Shanti’s feat didn’t just win her a gold medal for Singapore.
She also made history as Singapore’s 1st gold medallist at the Asian Athletics Championships, said SA President Lien Choong Luen on Facebook.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
Singapore athletes had netted five silvers and eight bronzes at the previous 24 editions of the competition.
No wonder Shanti raised her arms in jubilation at the finish line.
That’s not all of course — as she’s very used to by now, Shanti also broke a national record that was set by herself.
Her timing of 11.20s bettered her previous national record by 0.06s.
This was set on 28 May in Germany, when she took part in the 58th International Pentecost Sport Meeting.
In fact, that day, she broke the national record twice — once in the heats and again in the finals.
Her latest record-shattering run is the sixth time she’s broken the national record in this year alone.
As she became the fastest woman in Asia, Shanti still couldn’t quite believe it, telling ST that it was “crazy”.
She said she waited for the announcement to find out, and was incredulous when she heard it, adding,
At first, I was the SEA Games champion, now I’m the Asian champion, it’s freaking crazy.
She became the fastest woman ever in Southeast Asia in April when she competed in the women’s 200m heats of the Australian Open Track and Field Championships in Brisbane.
Her next outing will be the 200m event, round 1 of which will be on Saturday (15 July).
If she qualifies for the finals, this will be on Sunday (16 July).
Given her scintillating form so far, we wouldn’t bet against her making history yet again.
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Featured image adapted from Tan Chuan-Jin on Facebook and Singapore Athletics on Facebook.
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