TAWAU: A strong-willed Nurelfira Umaira Yusof, who never believes in giving up, created a stir by winning the girls' Under-14 80m hurdles gold medal in Perth, Australia, on Sunday.
Despite her small stature, standing at only 151cm tall, Nurelfira, 13, showed no fear.
Instead, she was more determined and confident to bring home medals from the Western Australia State Track and Field Championships in Perth. She also won the 200m hurdles silver.
Up against opponents who were taller and physically bigger in the competition, including the tallest runner who stood at over 180cm, Nurelfira said:
"Although other runners were bigger than me, I was confident. I was in Perth to win the title.
"I still believed I could win, although I was the shortest and smallest athlete in the race. I had trained for this pressure since Standard Four.
Speaking to reporters upon her arrival at Tawau Airport on Tuesday, the Sekolah Kebangsaan Pasir Putih student said another challenge in Perth was the number of hurdles used during the race.
"I had to adapt to it. In Malaysia, the event uses eight hurdles, but the Perth event had nine. making the distance between each hurdle closer.
"It's a bit difficult to adjust from eight to nine hurdles, so before the event, I warmed up and tried the hurdles.
"Thank God, I succeeded with a time of 13.10sec for the gold," she said, adding that she has a personal best of 11.98 in the 80 hurdles.
She will now resume training for the Little Athletics Championships in Bukit Jalil in July.
According to Nurelfira, her teacher, Karim Batjo, sparked her interest in hurdles when she was 10.
"I hope to represent Malaysia in the Sea Games one day," added Nurelfira.
Meanwhile, Karim said despite her age, she is brave and calm during races.
"Half an hour before the screening started, we had to change strategy because the event was using nine hurdles.
"Thank God, she was calm and followed the rhythm." he said.
The youngster hopes to represent her state in the Malaysia Games in the next three or four years.