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Sophie Chew

Shanti Pereira is one of the fastest women in Asia.
Singapore’s “Sprint Queen” holds the city state’s national records for the 100 and 200 metres, at 11.20 and 22.57 seconds respectively, both set in 2023.
Her six medals last year at various continental meets – including Singapore’s first athletics medals at the Asian Games in nearly five decades – catapulted her to household-name status.
It was a phenomenal season, all the sweeter for coming after a rough patch lasting several years. Her candour about her struggle back to top form has endeared her to fans, as has her down-to-earth manner – such as her fondness for retail therapy.

As she gears up for the 200m in Paris, let’s get up to speed on one of Singapore’s most beloved athletes.
Beginnings
Veronica Shanti Pereira was born on September 20, 1996. The youngest of four siblings, she comes from an athletic family: her mother, Jeet, was a 200m sprinter growing up, while her older sisters, Shobi and Valerie, also ran in track-and-field.
It was going to support Valerie, a former national athlete, that sparked Shanti’s interest. When she was nine, attending a girls’ school in Singapore’s Katong neighbourhood, she was talent-spotted by the school’s track-and-field coach at a sports day.
After primary school, she left the traditional education system to join the Singapore Sports School, a specialist institution set up to nurture athletic talent. Contemporaries there included badminton player Loh Kean Yew, who will also represent Singapore at the Paris Games.
By 2013, she was a name to watch, winning multiple medals at national student competitions and setting a national record at the world youth championships in Ukraine. But a personal highlight came when she met one of her idols, American sprinter Allyson Felix, at an event at a local Nike store that year.
Pereira, then preparing to make her Southeast Asian Games debut, asked Felix, an 11-time Olympic medallist, how she coped with the pressures of professional athletics in her teens.
“A lot of pressure has been put on me by the association and media, and there are expectations of me,” Pereira told local media outlet Today.
“But Allyson told me not to let it affect me and to surround myself with good people.”
Highs and lows
Pereira came in fourth in that first SEA Games event. But a career-defining moment was soon to come: at her second SEA Games in 2015, she won bronze in the 100m and gold in the 200m before a screaming home crowd at the National Stadium, ending Singapore’s 42-year drought for a sprinting gold.
The feat saw her dubbed “Sprint Queen” and made front-page headlines, but it proved difficult to repeat. Detractors – and sometimes Pereira herself – wondered if she had peaked.
At the 2017 SEA Games, Pereira failed to defend her crown, taking home double bronze. Her coach said Pereira had been running faster than in 2015 during training. “I think it was more of the pressure she felt … she was frightened of herself,” the coach said.
In 2018, a hamstring injury kept Pereira from progressing beyond the Asian Games heats. Stress was taking its toll off the track: she lost two academic scholarships within a week, one being a full tuition fee waiver and stipend for her accountancy degree at Singapore Management University, adding finances to her troubles.

She managed to qualify for the 200m at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but did not make the final, taking sixth place in her heat.
“All these setbacks made for some rough years,” she reflected later, revealing that she feared she no longer had what it took to be the Sprint Queen.
Career-defining year
Pereira did not give up – and nor did her sisters, who in 2021 published a children’s book, Go Shanti Go!, chronicling their sibling’s career.
A turning point came in 2022, when Pereira decided to focus on her love for her sport. She also began working with a new coach, former Portugal sprinter Luis Cunha, and quit her job as a copywriter to train full-time.
“Sometimes it takes a while for you to get to where you want to be, and it means you have to go through years of failures,” she said the following year.
At the SEA Games in 2023, she won both 100m and 200m, rewriting the national and Games records for the latter. She then pulled off another double gold at the Asian Championships.
While she did not medal at the World Athletics Championships, her 22.57 secured her 200m ticket to Paris.
Pereira took home a silver in the 100m at the Asian Games in October – then, in the 200m, Singapore’s first Asiad gold in 49 years.
Life in the fast lane
Before Paris, Pereira has been training in the US and Europe, sharing progress on Instagram: brunches of smoked salmon, avocado and eggs on toast; a new haircut in Sweden; and “get ready with me” videos, punctuated with ads for the brands she works with, including Japanese make-up giant Shiseido and e-commerce platform Zalora.
A fibula injury kept her out of the Diamond League, but if she needs a reminder of how to stay on track, she looks to her tattoos.
She has a sparrow, symbolising freedom; a sun and moon on her tricep, representing control over one’s destiny; and, on her wrist, the five circles of the Olympic logo.


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Singapore’s Shanti Pereira is overcome after winning 200m gold at the Asian Games in 2023. Photo: AP

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American sprinter Allyson Felix offered advice on how to adjust to life as an athlete. Photo: AFP

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Singapore’s Shanti Pereira celebrates after winning the women’s 200m final at the 19th Asian Games. Photo: AP

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Get up to speed on one of Singapore’s most high-profile athletes as she prepares to run in the 200 metres in Paris


Get up to speed on one of Singapore’s most high-profile athletes as she prepares to run in the 200 metres in Paris.


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Get up to speed on one of Singapore’s most high-profile athletes as she prepares to run in the 200 metres in Paris