Singapore’s sprint queen Shanti Pereira considers her performance at last week’s Asian Athletics Championships “pretty incredible”.
The 26-year-old cemented her reputation as one of Asia’s top sprinters in Bangkok with a double gold.
Her time of 11.20sec in the 100m was a new national record – the sixth time she smashed the mark this year. And her win in the 200m in 22.70sec was a meet record – just 0.01sec shy of equaling her own national record.
“My achievement still hasn’t really sunk in,” she told Tabla on Tuesday.
“My coach (Portuguese Luis Cunha) and I made history. I’m the first Singaporean to win two events in the same competition.
“I didn’t really expect that because it is such a high-level competition. I was just talking to my sister today and both of us can’t really believe what happened.
“It’s an amazing feeling and gives me the motivation to do well the rest of the year.”
Pereira has been in blistering form this year – seemingly able to win races at will. She rewrote her own 100m national record in her first race of the year at the New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Wellington in March. Her time of 11.46sec eclipsed her previous national mark by 0.02sec.
At the Australia Open Track and Field Championships in Brisbane, she broke her national records three times in three days. She clocked 11.38sec on Mar 31 to eclipse her own 100m national mark by 0.08sec and won the final a day later, shaving off 0.01sec. The next day, she timed 22.89sec in the 200m heat to set another national record.
In May’s SEA Games in Phnom Penh, Pereira became the first Singaporean woman to win both the 100m and 200m at the same edition of the Games. She won the 200m in 22.69sec, setting a new national and SEA Games record, eclipsing the 23.01sec set by the Philippines’ Kristina Knott in 2019.
Pereira regained some form last year after she won the 200m gold and 100m silver at the Hanoi SEA Games. But this year has been a grand recovery after she suffered several lows over seven years – early competition losses, niggling injuries and lack of a proper coach due to infighting and politicking in Singapore Athletics.
What has changed for her is that she started training full-time in January. The accounting degree holder used to work with social media content provider DC Creative from early 2022 and it affected her training pattern to some extent.
“When I started to train full-time, it also changed my mindset. In a way, I’m just focusing on myself now. I’m focusing on the process goals and doing the best that I can to be ready for big competitions,” she said.
“I’ve always believed that athletics is what I’m meant to do, so even though I was going through the low points of my career, I didn’t give up. I just pushed on and continued to work hard and train hard to keep up my performance.
“But what has happened this year is definitely something I did not expect, especially at the start of the year. I started to make a lot of breakthroughs and I hope to continue on that path for the rest of the year.”
Another aspect that has worked for Pereira is understanding her perspective of her athletics career.
“I no longer worry about what others think of me or say about me. I just think about myself and what I am capable of,” she said.
“I have also changed my lifestyle to be more athletics-centric because that’s what my coach has been trying to instill in me. Every decision I make is to contribute to my overall performance as an athlete, not just the competitions. This means having the discipline to watch my diet and make sure I get enough sleep because sleep is the most important form of recovery which will then contribute to my performance.”
Pereira has tweaked her running style and technique only slightly. “In terms of my technique, the changes have been very small, such as how I move, where my foot lands, things like that,” she said.
“I leave it to my coach to design my training programme. He has a yearly plan for the different competitions, like focusing on the certain areas that I need to improve on.”
Pereira will train and compete in Berlin and Copenhagen ahead of the Aug 19-27 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
The next major competition for her will be the Sept 23-Oct 8 Hangzhou Asian Games.
“Let’s see what happens in Hangzhou. Hopefully I will clock better timings. Right now, I am just enjoying the process.”
Pereira admitted there were “still a lot of things that I need to improve on”.
“There are many, many rounds till the final, so I have to be mentally prepared. There are a lot of places in my technique that I can work on,” she explained.
“In the 200m, for instance, I tend to get a bit tired towards the end of the race. My legs are a bit more tired. So it’s important to maintain proper technique to prevent injuries and ultimately run faster even though your body is tired.”
Pereira believes that training and competing in Europe are best for her before World Championships. “I’ll be up against the best in the world, so I will know what it feels like when I’m thrown into a big competition. And I’ll be prepared for it.”
With the full support of her family, boyfriend – former 400m runner and lawyer Tan Zong Yan, 28 – and coach, Pereira is confident she can continue to shine in major competitions this year.
“My boyfriend knows what it takes to be an athlete,” she said. “He supports me in whatever way he can. My family is very supportive of my journey. If they get the chance, my parents will fly over to watch me run.
“But my coach has been the key person in my career. I owe a lot of my success to him.”
