Singapore (Commonwealth Union)_ Shanti Pereira ended Singapore’s near 50-year wait for a track and field medal in the Asian Games, after clinching a silver in the women’s 100m on Saturday, 30th September .
Sleep was the only thing Shanti Pereira craved after a very exciting 24 hours at the Asian Games track and field competition.
The Singaporean sprinter went to bed only at 1 am after claiming a silver in the women’s 100m on Saturday, following the victory ceremony and anti-doping tests.
A sleep-deprived Pereira was back on the starting blocks at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium on Sunday morning six hours later, for the 200m heats.
The fatigue did not show on the track, as the 27-year-old earned a spot in the final easily, after winning Heat 3 in 23.14 seconds also being the quickest qualifying time among the 23-strong field.
With the semi-finals scrapped owing to withdrawals, quick times were even more important as the top two from each heat and the next two fastest athletes qualified for the final.
Her team had initially kept the information from her to ensure that she had sufficient rest, but Pereira figured it out on Saturday night after realizing there were three heats.
She said it was a matter of strategizing since she knew she had to run a fast time, and she wanted to get a good qualification for the final. So she just hoped to strategize and had that going into the warm-up and everything.
Just the previous night, Pereira had ended the Republic’s 49-year wait for an Asian athletics medal with her silver, adding more prizes to what has been a glittering year.
Pereira finished sixth overall in Friday’s heats closing a time of 11.42s in the second heat which was won by Bahrain’s Saeed Alkhaldi (11.34s) while Thailand’s Supanich Poolkerd crossed the line second in a time of 11.36s.
Shanti went through by virtue of clocking the fastest time outside of the six automatic qualifiers while she had missed out on the two automatic qualifying spots in her heat.
Going into the Games, Shanti had clocked the fastest timings of any Asian woman in the 100m in 2023. Her time of 11.20s was then eclipsed by Ge (11.17s) in the heats on Friday 29th September.
Last month Pereira became the first Singaporean to make a World Championships semi-finals after a stellar showing in the 200m in Budapest, Hungary and also for the event at the Paris Olympics in 2024, she met the qualifying mark.
In May, she won a historic 100m-200m sprint double at the Cambodia SEA Games, before repeating the feat two months later at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok.
At August’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, she became the first Singaporean to reach the semi-finals after clocking 22.57sec in the 200m heats, and meeting the Olympic qualifying mark.
If she is successful in crossing the finish line first in Monday’s final, she will become Singapore’s first athletics winner since Chee Swee Lee’s 400m gold in 1974.
Shanti Pereira, had been targeting a medal in the 100m and 200m events, next turning her attention to the 200m to compete in the heats on Sunday morning.
Pereira was up against fierce competition with China’s Wei Yongli (10.99s) and Ge (11.04s) in the final, as well as Bahrain’s Ofonime Odiong (11.05s) and Saeed Alkhaldi (11.17s) all possessing quicker personal bests.
If she is successful in crossing the finish line first in Monday’s final, she will become Singapore’s first athletics winner since Chee Swee Lee’s 400m gold in 1974.
