Shanti Pereira breaks own 200m national record; advances to semi-finals in World Athletics Championships
Her timing also meets the event’s qualifying time of 22.57s for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Singaporean sprinter Shanti Pereira advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s 200m at the World Athletics Championships on Wednesday (Aug 23), concurrently breaking her national record.
Shanti clocked a time of 22.57s at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, securing the second position in Heat Three. She trailed Jamaica’s defending champion Shericka Jackson by 0.06s.
Her previous best timing was clocked at 22.69s which she set in the Cambodia Southeast Asian Games (SEA) in May.
The top three in each of the Heats together with the next six fastest qualifiers advanced to the semi-finals scheduled for Thursday. Shanti finished 12th overall out of 44 competitors.
The Singapore Athletics said that she is the first Singaporean to progress past the Heats at the World Championships.
Shanti’s timing also meets the event’s qualifying mark of 22.57s for the Paris 2024 Olympics, making her the first Singaporean to qualify in the field of athletics.
On Sunday, she fell short of qualifying for the women’s 100m semi-finals after clocking a timing of 11.33s in Heat Two. She finished fourth, with her timing being 0.13s short of her personal best.
The 26-year-old earned her place in the world meet based on her world rankings in both the 100m and 200m events.
Earlier in July, Shanti achieved a sprint double at the Asian championships in Bangkok. This comes two months after achieving a similar feat at the SEA Games in Phnom Penh.
She is set to compete in both sprint events at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China next month.
