After receiving a last minute wild card for the Olympics, Azreen Nabila Alias will get to rub shoulders with the world's best sprinters like Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah in Tokyo.
However, she is keeping her target reasonable — which is to better her personal best of 11.81s in the 100m.
In Tokyo, the 21-year-old from Terengganu also hopes to break the 28-year-old's national record of 11.50s set by G. Shanti in 1993.
Azreen's best time this year is 12.00s, which she set in April en route to beating the seasoned S. Komalam Shally of Perak and Johor's Siti Fatimah Mohamad to the 100m gold at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
"My first target is to improve my personal best of 11.81s, which I did at the 2018 Malaysia Games, and my second is to try to break Shanti's national record," she said.
"It's going to be very tough for me in Tokyo as I have to compete against world-class athletes who are definitely faster and have better preparation compared to me.
"But I'm still proud to be competing in the Olympics. I will surely get nervous, going against these very fast runners. But I won't feel discouraged even if I trail far behind."
The seventh child among eight siblings, Azreen said her mother, Khadijah Ali, told her to never give up. Her father, Alias Che Ngah, a strong supporter of her athletics career, died in 2014 due to heart problem.
"My father would have been proud of me representing Malaysia in the Olympics," she said.