Aneeta Lingam
Shasangari Sivaneswary Nagarajan The journey has been long and difficult for lanky Sasha, 16, who never imagined she could be where she is now – on the Malaysian team competing for gold at the 29th SEA Games. Rhythmic gymnast, Shasangari Sivaneswary, or Sasha for short, made one of her earliest sacrifices at the tender age of nine, when she had to leave her friends behind to be enrolled in a school where it would be easier for her to train under the grand doyenne of Malaysian gymnastics, Petrina Low. The pressure is enormous for Sasha – gymnastics being a sport where every minuscule detail matters – yet she keeps going because it has always been her dream to achieve success in rhythmic gymnastics. Almost quitting because of the pressure and an injury before she was selected for the national team, Shasa credits her father for encouraging her to continue.
Muhammad Najmi Farizal Jazlan
Recently qualifying for the 2018 Men’s Hockey World Cup as part of the national men’s field hockey team, Najmi, 22, says it is only now, playing for Malaysia, that he sees how he can achieve his goal of playing at the Olympics one day, his dream since his days at the Tunku Mahkota Ismail sports school in the southern state of Johor. Playing on the defending champion’s team, Najmi hopes to score winning goals for the national team at the SEA Games this month.
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Najmi has only been on the national team for about a year, but looks forward to contributing to the national team's success nonetheless.
goingplacesmagazine.com / 49 / August 2017
Aneeta Lingam, 17, has no illusions about where she is exactly in the world of figure skating. She knows she has a long way to go, admitting that exposure as well as proper facilities are lacking for the national squad. But she is more than prepared to put in the work needed by venturing out and joining competitions, and accepting defeat. “Failure is hard to accept, but you just need to learn from them and keep improving,” she says. Having basically sacrificed her childhood to chase her 10-year dream, she is not letting it all be for nothing.
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The petite lass is living almost every little girl’s dream of being a figure skater – a dream once considered impossible for someone from sunny, tropical Malaysia.