Veronica Shanti Pereira is 18 years old when her two older sisters decide to write a book about her. They are standing in the bleachers at the National Stadium in Singapore, watching their youngest sister compete in the 200m sprint at the 2015 SEA Games.
As Pereira blazes down the track, her sisters feel their hearts thumping in their chests, blood rushing in their ears.
She crosses the finish line first. The crowd roars around them. The two older girls know: their baby sister has just made history.
“They were really moved by the impact of that moment,” says Pereira, reflecting on a conversation she had with her sisters in Bali, on a trip they took a month after that fateful race. “They felt like they had to put that experience down somewhere to remember forever.”
Pereira's 2015 win made her something of a national hero— after all, she had just earned Singapore its first gold medal in the event in
