A superstar is born -a paean to the Singapore Sprint Queen

 Never in the history of Singapore sports has a female athlete captured such a rapturous outburst of ovation for a female Singapore athlete for her spectacular singular achievement of capturing the gold medal in the 100 metre event of the Asia Game in Hangzhou in China.  Shanti Pereira is the Singapore Sprint Queen in every sense of he word. Even PM Lee Hsien and President Tharman Shanmugaratnam were overawed and proudly added in their congratulation.

Could it be a divine disposition that after fifty years of drought in the female sprint talent a sprint champion is born to take the world by storm. And coming from a minority ethnic group makes it all the more remarkable. She almost made it to a sprint double but missed the 100 metre gold by a whisker. She  is indeed a sprint champion in Asia and the Olympic sprint contest with world female athlete will not daunt her. So far there does not appear to be any formidable challenger to Shanti Pereira on the world athletic scene  and she may just have the nerve to pull off a victory.in the sprint events in the Olympic.

The training to prepare her for the competition was gruelling and her personal coach Luis Cunha ha done a vey remarkable job in perfecting her for the race. As a coach he has to be unobtrusive but from what little that had been made public about his expertise  for training Shanti  Pereira I think he deserves a national medal for his dedication. I think quite a lot of credit should be given to him for Shanti's achievements.

Almost overnight Shanti Pereira has become  a household name not only in Singapore but in the West as well. Dos not the PM Lee Hsien Loong think some form of national prestige should be awarded Shanti Pereira? Money she may demur but a national medal will certainly boost her confidance.