KUCHING: G. Shanti's national women's 100m record has stood for 31 years, and for a long time no one has come close to threatening it.
Someone has now emerged. Nur Afrina Batrisyia Mohamad Rizal, the new Sukma sprint queen, is eyeing that record. Shanti set the national record of 11.50 seconds in 1993 in Kuala Lumpur.
In 2017, Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli did run 11.36s in a competition in Pretoria, South Africa, but her time was not recognized as a national record because it was wind-assisted.
Nur Afrina, 20, believes she can break Shanti's record, but first she needs to work hard to improve her running technique.
Nur Afrina said with Zaidatul as her teammate, she believes they can push each other to achieve better times.
"We train together, using the same training programme. So, this allows us to compete against each other to clock better times and hopefully break the national 100m record," said Nur Afrina, who is coached by national sprint coach Mohd Poad Md Kassim.
Nur Afrina, representing Selangor, dominated the 100m and 200m races at the ongoing Sarawak Sukma with new meet records in both events. She clocked 11.64s in the 100m and 23.89s in the 200m.
Her 100m time was just 0.14s short of Shanti's record while her 200m time was 0.56s behind Shereen Samson Vallabouy's national record of 23.33s.
Nur Afrina said she hopes to compete in the Thailand Sea Games next year. "I will work hard to improve my running technique. I can't promise about my performance next year because we don't know what will happen. The most important thing is that I hope to stay injury-free," she said.