Singapore's Shanti Pereira breaks national, SEA Games records en route to 200m gold

PHNOM PENH: Shanti Pereira’s great run of form in 2023 continued on Monday (May 8) as the Singaporean sprinter took gold in the women's 200m final at the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, smashing national and meet records in the process.

Pereira, who is the defending champion in the event, clocked a time of 22.69s at the Morodok Techo National Stadium.

This broke Singapore's national record of 22.89s - set by herself - as well as the SEA Games record of 23.01s, set by Philippines’ Kristina Knott in 2019.

Knott, the 2019 champion, finished a distant fourth this year in 23.79s, behind Vietnam's Thi Nhi Yen Tran who took silver (23.54s) and Malaysian Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli in third place (23.6s).

At the 2021 Games, Pereira won the 200m gold with a time of 23.52s. 

Singapore’s sprint queen comes into this year's regional meet in a scintillating vein of form, having smashed a number of national records in March and April.

Last month, Pereira clocked the last national record of 22.89s in the women’s 200m heats at the Australian Track and Field Open in Brisbane – the fastest timing set by an Asian woman in 2023.

At the same meet, she notched a new national record of 11.37s en route to winning the women's 100m finals.

That timing was the second fastest set by an Asian woman in 2023. 

No Singaporean woman has won the both the 100m and 200m sprint events at the same Games.