Bold opening: The SEA Games 2025 100m races are shaping up as a showdown, with Boonson, Zohri, and Shanti Pereira at the center of the action. But here's where it gets controversial: the outcomes could hinge on timing, form, and perfect conditions on opening day in Bangkok.
The men’s and women’s sprint titles kick off the track and field program on day one, Thursday, December 11. Among the men, Puripol Boonson of Thailand and Lalu Muhammad Zohri of Indonesia are the marquee names, having established themselves as the fastest in the 2025 field.
Boonson, just 19, already holds the Thai record at 10.06 seconds set in 2023 and has posted the fastest Southeast Asian time this year, 10.15 seconds. With Muhd Azeem Fahmi of Malaysia unavailable for the Games, Zohri is widely viewed as the next big threat. The 25-year-old Indonesian has a personal best of 10.03 seconds (achieved in 2019), though his best this season is 10.21 seconds.
Rounding out the finalists are Singapore’s Marc Brian Louis at 10.31 seconds and Malaysia’s Jonathan Nyepa at 10.40 seconds, forming a competitive field of 14 sprinters in the men’s event.
In the women’s 100m, Veronica Shanti Pereira stands out as the clear favorite. She arrives as the reigning silver medalist from both the 2023 Asian Championships and the Asian Games, and she’ll be chasing the personal best and Singaporean national record of 11.20 seconds achieved in the venue where she previously excelled.
Pereira’s season best stands at 11.40 seconds, more than a tenth faster than the nearest challenger in Bangkok, Zion Corrales-Nelson of the Philippines (11.52). Corrales-Nelson’s teammate Kristina Marie Knott is also in the mix with an 11.56-second best.
As countdowns begin, fans will watch to see who carries the momentum into the Games’ opening-day sprints, where small margins separate medals from near-misses and set the stage for the Southeast Asian track scene in 2025.
