Shanti Pereira qualifies for 200m final, gunning for second gold at Asian Athletics Championships

BANGKOK – Shanti Pereira is tired but also fired up, knowing she has one more race, and a chance for the sprint double at the Asian Athletics Championships.

That will be the women’s 200m final on Sunday, after she eased through the heats and semi-finals on Saturday.

She had clocked 23.33 seconds in the morning and 23.51sec in the evening session to book her place.

Both times were well below her personal best – and Singapore record – of 22.69sec she had set en route to winning gold at the Cambodia SEA Games in May –but it was enough to get the job done.

After all, they were her sixth and seventh races over the past week at Bangkok’s Suphachalasai National Stadium and Pereira was feeling the effects of a packed schedule.

She said: “I wanted to just get through the rounds today because it’s been a lot of racing for me – two relays, three rounds of 100m.

“The main goal was to get through the rounds in the top qualifying spots, so I’m glad and now recovering for the final.”

The 26-year-old had won Singapore’s first gold medal at the Asian meet in the 100m on Friday night in a national record of 11.20sec.

But any celebrations had to be put on hold as she conserved her energy for the 200m, her pet event. She returned to her hotel at only around 9pm and had to be back at the stadium at 7.30am for the 200m heats.

She said: “I did anti-doping (after the 100m final) so I didn’t get to go back as fast as I wanted to but it’s okay. I managed to sleep and did what I could.

“I knew the job wasn’t done and that I have another event, so I managed to calm down quite quickly.

“It’s just fully focusing on 200m now and recovering properly later and giving it my all tomorrow.”

She was the third-fastest finalist, with India’s 100m hurdles Asian champion Yarraji Jyothi topping the timesheet in 23.29sec, followed by Japan’s Remi Tsuruta (23.47sec).

Pereira’s teammate Elizabeth-Ann Tan clocked 24.83sec to end 16th and did not advance.

Neither did Mark Lee in the men’s 200m. He ran 21.56sec to finish 19th.

Goh Chui Ling missed out on the women’s 800m final after coming in 10th in the heats in 2min 09.81sec.

The men’s 4x400m relay quartet (Ng Chin Hui, Zubin Muncherji, Thiruben Thana Rajan and Calvin Quek) reached the final after finishing eighth of nine teams. They clocked 3:11.65 in the heats, which was topped by India (3:04.38).

Apart from Jyothi and Tsuruta, Pereira’s closest challengers will be Japan’s Arisa Kimishima, whose fastest time this season is 23.17sec, which she clocked in June, and Kazakhstan’s 2019 Asian championships silver medallist Olga Safronova, who won the title at the 2014 Asian Games.

Both Kimishima (23.57sec) and Safronova (23.75sec) advanced from the first semi-finals.

Pereira’s coach Luis Cunha said the 200m final will be tougher than the 100m for a variety of reasons.

In addition to the hectic schedule, many of her rivals skipped the 100m and Pereira’s victory on Friday has inevitably led to more expectations.

He said: “This is the tricky thing because she needed to qualify but also recover from yesterday and she also did the relays.

“The last 100m race came with a lot of baggage, a lot of emotions from the victory. So today was to save as much possible energy as possible and try to recover as much as we can tomorrow.”

But the Portuguese insisted these are not excuses ahead of one of the biggest races of Pereira’s season.

He said: “Even if there is pressure, it’s not the opposite of enjoying. You can have a situation where you feel pressure, but you enjoy feeling that pressure.

“The idea is for her to enjoy it as much as possible – she’s in a final and feels like she can fight for medals, so it’s an amazing feeling that she needs to enjoy.”