While the only sprinting that most ordinary Singaporeans do is after the bus, Shanti Pereira is used to breaking national records while sprinting.
The Singaporean athlete has just won the Australian Open 100m finals doing what she does best.
Source: Team Singapore on Facebook
In doing so, she set yet another national record — her third in one week.
Shanti, 26, competed in the Australian Open Track and Field Championships in Brisbane on Saturday (1 Apr).
Her momentous gold in the Women’s 100m Open finals was announced in a Facebook post by Singapore Athletics (SA) that day.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
They noted that she clocked a time of 11.37 seconds, leaving the rest of her competitors in the dust.
11.37s is a new national record, SA added.
Australians Torrie Lewis and Bree Masters finished second and third with timings of 11.38s and 11.41s, respectively.
Source: Soh Rui Yong on Facebook
Shanti achieved this despite running into a -0.4m/s headwind, SA said.
In a video of the run they posted, she seems to get off to a good start off the block, but is slightly behind the frontrunner.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
However, she catches up with a magnificent sprint in the last stretch, pipping her closest challenger by just 0.01s.
Shanti’s time of 11.37s was an improvement of 0.01s from her timing in the preliminaries on Friday (31 Mar).
Her prelims run of 11.38s allowed her to enter the semi-finals the next day as the fastest qualifier.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
At the time, 11.38s was also a new 100m national record — meaning her gold-winning run in the finals was the second time she set a record in two days.
Source: Singapore Athletics on Facebook
Apparently, Shanti can’t stop setting records.
On 25 Mar — less than a week before the 100m prelims — she was running in the Brisbane Track Classic.
She would finish third in the 200m finals but clock a time of 23.16s — a new national record for that event.
On 3 Mar, she competed at the New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Wellington.
In the women’s 100m heats, she recorded a time of 11.46s — setting a national record that would be eclipsed on Friday (31 Mar).
Though she ended up in third place during the finals, it wasn’t a bad achievement considering she hadn’t participated in a competition since August 2022, in the Commonwealth Games.
She also became the first Singaporean to reach No. 1 in the World Athletics’ women’s 100m outdoor rankings in Asia, according to The Straits Times (ST).
Shanti’s next competition is coming in fast and furious — the 200m event on Sunday (2 Apr).
Following that would be the SEA Games in May and the Asian Athletics Championships, World Athletics Championships and Asian Games later this year.
Given her red-hot form so far, we wouldn’t bet against her doing well.
Congrats to Shanti for making Singapore proud time and again, and wishing her all the best and more medals to come.
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Featured image adapted from Team Singapore on Facebook.
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