Singaporean sprinter Shanti Pereira continued her red-hot 2023 form in the Asian Athletics Championships (AAC) when she won the 100m event on Friday (14 July).
In the process, she also broke her now-customary national record yet again.
That raised our hopes for the 200m event — and she duly delivered, winning gold in that too.
Source: Asian Athletics Championships on YouTube
Now she returns to Singapore a double gold-medal winner, the first Singaporean to do so.
Shanti, 26, was competing in the Women’s 200m event at the AAC on Sunday (16 July).
At the Suphachalasai National Stadium in Bangkok, she came in first in the final with a time of 22.70 seconds, according to Singapore Athletics (SA).
This was some 0.43s faster than her nearest challenger, India’s Jyothi Yarraji (23.13s), reported The Straits Times (ST).
China’s Li Yuting took the bronze with a time of 23.25s.
Besides winning the event, Shanti’s time was also a record for the AAC.
The record she smashed was set by Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser (22.74s) in 2019.
While she didn’t set a new national record this time, her time was just 0.01s short of one — her record-breaking time of 22.69s set at the SEA Games final in May.
Perhaps more importantly for Singaporeans, Shanti’s 200m gold caps a historic outing in the AAC for the nation.
Her 100m event gold was Singapore’s first at the AAC, and first medal for 16 years in the competition.
It was also our first medal in a track event since 1975.
Now, her 200m event gold means she’s a double gold winner — the first Singaporean to achieve this at the AAC.
No wonder she was emotional and jubilant at the finish line on Sunday.
Source: Asian Athletics Championships on YouTube
She told ST that her “emotions were crazy” on Friday, and now they’ll be even more so.
She said she was “incredibly happy” and “thankful” that she came out with good performances in all her races. Though now she’s “just really tired”, the emotions will probably sink in soon enough.
Showing how this means to her, she wept tears of joy as the Singapore anthem played during the medal ceremony.
Source: Asian Athletics Championships on YouTube
Incredibly, this wasn’t even Shanti’s first double gold.
At the Cambodia SEA Games in May, she also won both the 100m and 200m events.
That meant that she became the first Singaporean woman to win both events in the same edition of the Games.
With her second historic double gold in a row, Shanti has now become our “Golden Queen”, on top of all the other accolades we’ve piled on her.
Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong paid tribute to Shanti in a Facebook post on Sunday, echoing our thoughts when he said we’ve “run out of superlatives” for her.
Source: Edwin Tong on Facebook
He noted that her times in both her events would’ve won gold at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games.
As the latest edition of the Asian Games looms in September, she seems to be peaking at the right time — and we’re excited to see the heights she’ll achieve.
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Featured image adapted from Singapore Athletics on Facebook and Asian Athletics Championships on YouTube.
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