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Shanti qualifies for SEA Games 100m

SINGAPORE - Sprint queen Shanti Pereira is off to a roaring start to the new year after clinching a silver in the women's 100m at the Allan & Sylvia Potts Classic in Hastings, New Zealand,, on Saturday (Jan 14).

Shanti Pereira showing off her certificate for winning silver. She has qualified for this August's SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur with her time of 11.78sec. Photo: Margaret Oh.

Shanti Pereira showing off her certificate for winning silver. She has qualified for this August's SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur with her time of 11.78sec. Photo: Margaret Oh.

SINGAPORE - Sprint queen Shanti Pereira is off to a roaring start to the new year after clinching a silver in the women's 100m at the Allan & Sylvia Potts Classic in Hastings, New Zealand, on Saturday (Jan 14).

Her time of 11.78sec also met the qualifying mark for the SEA Games in Malaysia, where the 20-year-old will be gunning to defend her title in the 200m  and better her century sprint bronze medal effort from the 2015 Games.

Currently in New Zealand for a week-long competition stint, the sprinter had already earned her SEA Games spot earlier in the day after clocking 11.85sec in the women's 100m heats as the qualifying mark is 11.88sec

Racing in cool 22 deg C weather, Pereira bettered her time in the 100m final with her time of 11.78sec, narrowly missing out on gold to Zoe Hobbs of North Harbour Bays Athletics Club in a photo finish. Georgia Hulls of Hastings Athletic Club was third in 11.80sec.

While Pereira's time was 0.02sec quicker than her national record of 11.80sec clocked at the 2015 Singapore Track and Field Open Championships, it is not a new mark as the tail wind of 2.2m/s is above the wind assistance limit.

Pereira, who also holds the national 200m record of 23.60sec, had found herself in an unexpected post-Games slump in the 2016 season. Her season-best times in the 100m and 200m were of 11.84sec and 24.04sec respectively. As such, she was happy to be back in the groove.

"It feels great to qualify for the SEA Games and I was hoping for a good timing this round especially after the training stint I just went for," said Pereira, who had spent a month in Munich last year training with her coach Margaret Oh and Volker Hermann, head coach of the Bavarian sprint team.

"I had a pretty rough year last year, so I'm really happy I managed to run this timing!

"I did a lot of reflecting about last year and went into the new season more confident after the training camp in Munich so I think that helped me a lot for this race and I'm really looking forward to the season ahead."

She will be attempting to crack the SEA Games 200m qualifying mark of 23.92sec at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui and the Capital Classic in Wellington on Jan 17 and Jan 20 respectively.

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