After a golden win, a glowing Shanti Pereira chases another dream
Rohit Brijnath
Assistant Sports Editor
Shanti Pereira won the 200m at the Asian Games and now she wants to go faster. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Oct 4, 2023
After
the golden moment, there’s a glow. After the goal’s been chased and caught, there’s a lightness. After expectation has been met and pressure wrestled to the ground, there’s a satisfaction.
You can see it in Shanti Pereira’s face.
It’s Wednesday evening in a corner of the press room and she’s laughing. No, she doesn’t know how many text messages she’s got. “Some are still unopened. Because it’s so many. I’m slowly going through them. It’s a lot of overwhelming support from back home.”
Yes, she knows how many new Instagram followers she has. Used to be 12,000. Now it’s almost 18,000. “Earlier this year,” she says, ‘I was growing in the number of followers and then my teammates were pressuring me to go get a blue tick. I said OK, I’ll do it once I hit 10(k). And then I hit 10. Then I said, when I hit 15 I’ll do it. Then I kind of skip it ... and my teammate is just like, give me your phone I’ll do it for you.”
But no, it’s not done yet.
After the golden moment, fame comes like a gentle wave. The followers, the interviews, the wefies, this young life reshaped in 23.03 seconds. She’ll still be herself and yet she’ll be forever changed.
Next to her is sitting the thoughtful Portuguese perfectionist, Luis Cunha. So has he already told you what you didn’t do well?
“Yeah, sort of,” she says. “Like the ending wasn’t really my usual ending. I end stronger usually. I was slowing down a lot, maybe towards the end. But usually I’m quite composed all the way to the end”.
The proper race debrief hasn’t happened yet, but Cunha will watch the race and re-watch it and note every detail. It’s his job to nitpick, to challenge, to make her faster still. After the golden moment, ambition doesn’t die.
The faster she goes, the harder it becomes to slice off shards of a second. Every fraction cut is hard labour. Still, how fast would she like to go, even if it’s just an idea, a fantasy, a longing out there in the distance.
“I mean, it will be a dream for sure, to let’s say, for the 100 meters (to go) sub-11 seconds. That will be a dream. It’s a very big stretch. (Shaving off ) .2 seconds is a lot in the 100m (her best is 11.2). (And shaving off) .57 is a lot in the 200 (her best is 22.57). Yeah, it’d be a dream. A dream come true if I were to go sub-22 seconds ever in my life.”
Shanti Pereira clocked 23.03 seconds to claim the gold. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
But quickly she adds a cautionary note.
“I know it’s very, very, very hard to reach.”
But fast isn’t just a time, it’s a place, it’s a position in an elite gathering. “It was a dream,” she says, “to be in the World Championship semi-finals. Did that. Now I have to see how the next season will pan out. But hopefully an Olympic semi-final in a better position than from where I was at the world champs this year. I was in 17th position (200) and 31st for the 100. So a better position.”
After the golden moment, an athlete sees another figure in the mirror. An updated, refined version of herself. Because victory wasn’t just over everyone else but herself, the moment, demons, the past. This position she found herself in, favourite to win a race at the Asian Games, this was unusual, new and loaded with pressure and she met it beautifully.
“I feel,” she says, “I handled (the pressure) pretty well. I’ve been in this position before, not this particular specific position, but I’ve been in a position where I’m the favourite, and I’m expected to win. And I remember how I handled it back then. I was just so scared of all the pressure from everywhere and the expectations.”
But this time, she says, “Now I’m saying I’ve never been in this position before and I’m just truly embracing it. And just thanking everybody that has put me in this position.” And you could see this poise in her run and you can hear this assuredness in her voice.
“I’m at the athlete’s village and I got people on the day of the competition coming up to me to say, ‘So first, ah, later’. If it was me, years ago, I would have taken that as a huge pressure point, but I didn’t this time around”. She just grins and says she told them, “You’ll see”.
And we did.
On the podium, as she wept to the music of the national anthem, when life and her breathing had slowed down, when there was nothing left to achieve but only to be hailed, it was only then that it sank in. “Yeah, I just did that, you know?” The next morning when she awoke, she was that simplest of things. “Happy.”
After the golden moment, you see, life has a shine.