SINGAPORE – Dipna Lim-Prasad added yet another national record to her collection when she smashed one of Singapore athletics’ oldest national marks this afternoon (Oct 5).

The 22-year-old Nanyang Technological University student - who already holds the national 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles records - rewrote Prema Govindan’s 29-year-old national 200m mark of 24.54sec, when she clocked 24.36sec at the 3rd Singapore U-23 Open Track and Field Championships.

Teen talent and national 100m record holder Shanti Pereira, 17, had been tipped to be the one to finally break Govindan’s record, which was set in 1984, after she had equalled the time at last July’s IAAF World Youth Championships.

But this afternoon, in a thrilling neck-to-neck battle on the Choa Chu Kang Stadium tarmac which had all the spectators in the stands on their feet, it was Lim-Prasad who pipped Shanti at the tape to take both the gold and the honour of becoming the first woman in almost three decades to break the 200m mark.

Shanti finished with the silver in 24.56sec, just 0.02sec shy of the record, and 0.2sec behind Lim-Prasad. Tyra Ree Summer was third in 26.39sec.

Lim-Prasad told TODAY that she did not go into today’s final expecting to break the record.

“Actually, my recent training times have been quite promising but I never enter an event expecting to break a record,” confided the Singapore Sports School (SSP) alumnus. “There is always the worry of not being able to replicate training times in a competition setting,” she said.

“So, yes, I am really happy, and I hope this spells promising times ahead for the 400m and 400m hurdles.”

Lim-Prasad’s coach Viatcheslav Vassiliev said he was pleased with his protege’s performance but noted areas for improvement. Said the Georgian who also coaches at the SSP: “Dipna had a very good start and came out of the curve very strongly.

“But she was leaning back towards the end so that’s an area we will need to work on and improve.”

Despite missing out on the 200m record, Shanti, 16, was pleased with her timing and performance.

The Republic Polytechnic student also paid tribute to Lim-Prasad who was once her senior at SSP: “Running against Dipna is always a scary experience because she is one of the top athletes in Singapore.

“She gave me the motivation to run even faster today. I am quite happy with my result as I managed to run faster in the final than in the heats.”