Singapore's Shanti Pereira: Bouncing back from losing scholarships to become the country's sprint queen
Before becoming her country's first Asian Games athletics champion since 1974, Veronica Shanti Pereira had to recover from losing two scholarships in a single week. She told Olympics.com how she recovered from the setback and what being a full-time athlete now has done for her progress.
Athletics
Giving up is not an option for Veronica Shanti Pereira.
The star sprinter has faced her share of setbacks on the road to becoming Singapore's first Asian Games athletics champion since 1974**.**
Five years ago, injuries beset the then-student, who performed under par at the 2018 Asian Games and ended up losing two scholarships – a sports high-performance scholarship and a university scholarship – in the space of one week.
Fast forward to 2023 and Shanti had the season of her life this year, lowering her national records in both the 100m and 200m multiple times and winning two medals - silver in the 100m and gold in the 200m - at the Games in Hangzhou. That's something that seemed far from possible in 2018.
"When I was at my lowest, it was the people around me that helped me get through it all," she told Olympics.com in Hangzhou, reflecting on the difficult times. "My family, they've been my number one supporters from the very beginning, they knew that I love track and field and they knew I had a gift. They really got me out of a lot of struggles, um, back then."
Undeterred, Shanti got her head down and graduated from Singapore Management University in 2021, before deciding to turn fully professional as an athlete. The sea change has been noticeable.
"When I joined Coach Luis (Cunha), he helped me really change my perspective of what I do. He helped me realise that to really reach my fullest potential, I had to recognise myself as a professional athlete, and that requires sacrifice.
"Just the day-to-day things, smaller things I do throughout my day that I feel really helped me feel like there's everyday progress and just benefitting me as an athlete every single day," Shanti shared.
Shanti Pereira's "10/10" 2023 season
In addition to her multiple national records this year and her two Asian Games medals, Shanti also clocked a personal-best 22.57 in the 200m at the World Championships in Budapest in August, which saw her achieve the Olympic qualifying standard for that event.
"It's a 10/10 season," a jubilant Shanti grinned when asked to rate her year. "I mean, the second I crossed the finish line after the 200, that's exactly what I thought: what an incredible season it has been."
The 27-year-old competed in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, Asian Championships, World Championships, and Asian Games in 2023, a busy schedule by any athlete's standards. She won golds at the SEA Games, Asian Championships, and Asian Games.
"Four majors in a year is not easy, so to maintain that level of recovery was essential. Just coming off a very long year, it's truly amazing, I'm still kind of walking on air a little bit."
At the World Championships, in addition to achieving the Olympic qualification standard time, she got a once-in-a-lifetime chance – at least for sprinters from smaller nations like Singapore – to run with not one, not two, but three different sprinting superstars in the semi-finals: after running with Jamaica's defending champion Shericka Jackson in the 200m heats, Shanti was paired with Jackson, Sha'Carri Richardson, and Marie-Josée Ta Lou in the semis.
"It felt like a dream, if I'm being honest. I was in the call room and I was really just like, 'whoa, am I really sitting here right now? With all these people?'
"I was just kind of seeing how they were in the call room, and honestly I feel like they were just having fun just being there and happy to race. Sha'Carri says she likes to form a sisterhood and that just kind of what I felt I saw, so I was just soaking in all of that."
A different 2024 season for Shanti Pereira
If Shanti has her way, she could be on for a repeat next year at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and find herself in another stacked semi-final. Recording the 22.57 she needed to hit the Olympic entry standard at Worlds means the Singaporean can approach the upcoming Olympic year slightly differently than she would have, already having become the first track and field athlete from her country to qualify for the Games on merit.
"Hitting that standard makes it different than the planning because I don't have to constantly try and hit that qualifying mark, which would probably mean I would have to start the summer season earlier," she explained. "So I can start a little bit later.
"There are definitely a lot of things I can still improve on just in terms of the technique and how I run the curve, how I come out on the straight and things like that. And most important, how my form is, especially towards the end of the race."
Having made the semi-finals at the World Championships has given Shanti the belief she can etch her name alongside the likes of swimming's Tao Li and Joseph Schooling in qualifying for an Olympic final.
"At the World Champs, I came in 17th position and to enter the final was 22.30, I think. So I guess both (me and my coach) really want to try – it's going to be hard, because it's normal that the faster you get the harder it is to shave time – we're going to pull out all the stops to try and quicken that time and make the Olympic final with a good enough time."
Singapore athletics on the rise: Shanti
And while she may be Singapore athletics' golden girl right now, Shanti is positive about the general trend for the sport.
Aside from Shanti's performances in Hangzhou, Marc Brian Louis also broke the country's men's 100m national record that had stood for 22 years, while multiple other athletes qualified for finals in their events.
She expressed hope that this could be the latest golden generation of track and field athletes for Singapore who would lead the country to more medals at regional and continental level.
"We had a great SEA Games last year; we had a great one this year (too). Asian Games has been great as well – we have many in the finals, it's honestly looking good for athletics.
"I'm hoping my successes have given some sort of inspiration to everyone back home who has a passion in track and field and wants to see where they can go with it, and hopefully we see even more inspiring results in the future."
While she has high hopes for the future, it's safe to say Shanti has never forgotten the depths of 2018 from where she has come.
"I'm doing this for me and the people around me," she said of her family's support. "It's always an honour to represent Singapore and I'm doing it for everyone that might be in the same situation as (I was) as well.
"And here I am."