Shanti Pereira leads Sports School to track and field C Division girls’ team title

By Koh Yizhe/Red Sports

Choa Chu Kang Stadium, Wednesday, April 14, 2010 – The Singapore Sports School entered the last day of the 51st National Inter-School Track and Field Championships in fourth place, 27 points behind leaders Cedar Girls’ Secondary but magnificent performances by their sprinters on the day enabled them to erase that deficit to emerge champions in the girls’ C Division.

The Sports School eventually finished with 119 points, level with Cedar Girls’ Secondary, but they claimed the overall C Girls’ title by virtue of having notched up more first-place finishes.

14-year-old Shanti Pereira was the star of the Championships for the Sports School with three gold medals on the final day of competition. Shanti set two records in the 100 metres sprint and the 4x100m relay, with the last gold coming in the 4x400m relay where she ran the anchor leg.

Cedar Girls’ Secondary’s performance on the final day paled in comparison to the Sports School’s. Their athletes only managed fifth. sixth and seventh place finishes in the 800m and a fourth place in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.

On the other hand, the Sports School swept the podium places in the 100m sprint with Shanti Pereira and Eugenia Tan breaking the previous record of 12.83 seconds. Shanti claimed gold with a time of 12.75s while Eugenia took home silver in 12.81s. Khalesa Ahmad Kabeer rounded the top-three for the Sports School with a time of 13.20s.

In the 800m C Division girls’ final, Sports School’s Lian Li Yan claimed the bronze medal in 2 minutes 38.04 seconds, just 0.25s ahead of St. Nicholas Girls’ Dayna Ang, to give her team the much needed extra point to help her school clinch the title.

Though Shanti’s achievements attracted all the attention, the Sports School team manager, Ms. Jenny Lim gave a different view: “The key race in winning the title was the 800m race. In the relays, the gold medals were expected but not this one. We didn’t expect Li Yan to do so well and I am really proud of her.”

In the relays, the medal-winning trio of Shanti, Eugenia and Khalesa teamed up with Britannie Rei to smash the 4x100m record of 50.53s with a time of 49.67s. They were a little slow off the blocks, but the second runner was able to take the lead before handing over to Shanti. Eugenia then anchored the team to a record-breaking time.

Then in the 4x400m relay, the quartet of Farhana Bte Md Thair, Britannie Rei, Eugenia and Shanti led from start to finish to claim the gold with a time of 4:13:41.

“I am very happy that they won!” said Ms. Jenny Lim. “I didn’t expect the C girls to win this year.”

“It was definitely unexpected,” said Shanti after the closing ceremony. “I expected Eugenia to win it (the 100 metres race). It is all a bit surreal right now and I can’t believe it!”

“In the relays, we all worked together as a team and my team mates were awesome! The 4x100m was nerve-wracking, but by the second runner we managed to catch up,” added Shanti.

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