No balik kampung for Iron Lady
heptathlon record holder Norliyana Kamaruddin admits she is sad that she can’t balik kampung this year.
As a result of the Conditional Movement Control Order, she won’t be able to celebrate Hari Raya with family members in Jempol, Negri Sembilan, 135.7km away from Kuala Lumpur.
However, the Iron Lady will spend the festive occasion with her sister in Cheras.
Norliyana, who is also a top high jumper, said in these trying times, health and safety come before everything else.
For her, Jempol is the place where her athletics career originated. It was at SK Palong 7 Felda there that she took up athletics as a primary schoolgirl.
Athletics was among the few sports offered in her rural school, located at the Negri Sembilan and Pahang borders.
Her father, Kamaruddin Md Din and her late mother Satiah Ali, encouraged her to excel in athletics from school to national level.
Norliyana, 29, said: “I love athletics, and the achievements from it give me great satisfaction.”
Groomed in the high jump by former national coach Alim Ahmedjanov, she now trains under Aleksandr Gasparyan. As for the heptathlon, her coaches are Rifat Artikov and Malik Tobias.
Norliyana’s target for next year is to break the national heptathlon record at the Asian Indoor Championships and win a medal at the Sea Games in Vietnam.
A high jumper since school days, she only took up heptathlon in 2013. At the 2017 KL Sea Games, Norliyana collected 5247 points to crack Zaiton Othman’s 36-year-old record of 5175 points to finish fourth.
At last year’s Sea Games in the Philippines, she won silver in the heptathlon with 4906 points, and she was fifth in the high jump with 1.75m.
During the MCO, she trained twice a day, giving focus to endurance and strength drills.