ITE College East (Simei), Sunday, February 20, 2011 — 14 year old Veronica Shanti Pereira set a new national Under-15 record in the 200 metres when she clocked 25.89 seconds at the Singapore Athletic Association’s Track and Field Series.

The race was run with a tailwind speed of 1.7 metres per second, which is allowable for record-setting purposes.

With this result, the Singapore Sports School student bettered both the hand and electronically-timed marks. The hand-timed record was 25.9, set by Mona Kunalan in 1986, while Veronica herself held the latter mark of 26.03, set at the 2009 Thailand Sports School Games when she had not even turned 13 yet.

Veronica just barely failed to improve on that mark in 2010, but set another Under-15 record in the 100m with her 12.68s performance at July’s International Children’s Games, which won her the silver medal.

Veronica will turn 15 in September and will have until then to improve on both Under-15 records, after which she will gun for the Under-17 marks – her elder sister Valerie holds the U-17 200m record – and possibly the senior records.

In the same race on Sunday, fellow youth sprinters Ruelia Nesaranjini and Eugenia Tan also clocked personal bests of 25.85 and 26.10 respectively.

Note: This new record is pending ratification by the Singapore Athletic Association.