Veronica Shanti Pereira was only 18 years old when her two older sisters decided to write a book about her. They watched her blaze down the track at the 2015 SEA Games, crossing the finish line first in the 200m sprint. The crowd roared around them, and her sisters knew their baby sister had just made history.
Pereira’s 2015 win made her a national hero, earning Singapore its first gold medal in the event in 42 years. She was awarded the Sports Excellence Scholarship in 2016 and added another feather to her cap a year later: the Yip Pin Xiu Scholarship to study accountancy at Singapore Management University (SMU).
Her sisters’ book, titled “Go Shanti Go,” charted Pereira’s journey as an athlete from her childhood to her historic win in 2015. What they couldn’t have known, however, was the setback that lay just ahead.
In 2018, a crushing hamstring injury threatened to derail Pereira’s career. The pain was excruciating, and she lost strength in her leg. She struggled to fall asleep and felt emotionally lost.
“All I could think about was getting back on the track,” she says. “But I couldn’t train the way I needed to without injuring myself again. It was incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that my body needed time to heal from a trauma.”
Pereira’s goal of medaling at the 2018 Asian Games was over. The physical blow of her injury was followed by another difficult consequence: she would be stripped of her Sports Excellence Scholarship. Then came a painful double whammy—unable to keep her grades up, she also lost her academic scholarship from SMU.
“I didn’t know if I had a career anymore,” she says.
But Pereira refused to give up. She worked hard to recover from her injury and regain her fitness. In October 2023, she became her country’s first Asian Games athletics champion since 1974. She also qualified for the Olympics on merit, meeting the qualifying time in the 200m sprint—one of the hardest events to qualify for in history.
Pereira is now 28 years old and has set several national records in sprint categories. She is the fastest Southeast Asian woman in the 100m and 200m events.
Her journey has been one of ups and downs, but she has never lost sight of her dream. She is an inspiration to all who know her, and she is determined to create a more supportive sporting culture in Singapore.
