NEW YORK, July 25 (Bernama) -- From the New York Daily News, the New York Times to the Columbus Despatch and the San Francisco Chronicle, not to mention being featured by the proliferating network of bloggers, Malaysian shooter Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi seems to hold the US media spellbound with her resolve not only to participate in the Olympics in London but also to win a medal.
Whether she wins the medal or not, is another thing but Nur Suryani, 29, a specialist in the 10m Air-rifle, seems to have impressed columnists and reporters here who maintained that she was headed for the record books at the Olympics in her eight-month pregnancy condition.
Because of her advanced stage of pregnancy, the New York Daily News portrayed her as the "furthest along for any mom-to-be competing in the celebrated sporting event."
What seemed to impress her fans around the world was her so-called "boleh" spirit - the "can-do" approach to things that seems to be pervasive amongst enterprising Malaysians.
Her message to The New York Times seemed to have a universal ring: "For me, nothing is impossible. It's one of the challenges. If I abandoned it, maybe who knows? Another four years to wait, maybe I won't have the opportunity."
Nur Suryani's pregnancy has also prompted the US media to speculate about how many pregnant women have participated in the Olympics Games. The problem is not made easy as the International Olympic Committee has not been maintaining any official record about it.
However, there have been at least three other pregnant women who competed in the games, though these were in the International Winter Olympics, according to The New York Times.
The last case was that of Canadian Curling Champion Kristie Moore who competed in Vancouver in 2010 despite being about five-and-a-half months pregnant and created a sensation by winning a silver medal.
However, there have been several other cases of pregnant women participating in sports competitions outside the Olympic Games, especially Amber Miller, 27, another sensation when in her nearly 39th week of pregnancy she completed the Chicago Marathon last year - only to give birth to a healthy baby girl a few hours later!
Nur Suryani, according to reports in the US media, wants to give birth in the right way. She has been trying to "pacify the baby inside her", says one newspaper, by saying "soothing words" to the unborn child.
The Malaysian shooter very nearly did not make it to the London Olympics since Malaysian sports experts were worried over her inability to compete so far along in her pregnancy.
Nur Suryani is ranked 47th in the world and even improved her shooting skills as she continued to train while her doctor had also given the green light for her to travel abroad.
In the New York Times story, she was quoted as saying that she knows exactly what she would tell her offspring when she was older: "You are very lucky. You're not born yet and you already went to the Olympics!"
-- BERNAMA
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