Thursday June 2, 2011
By LIM TEIK HUAT
KUALA LUMPUR: Jupha Somnet has a sweet face and a disarming smile but she prefers to be known for her cycling skills on the track.
And Jupha, who is of Thai-Malay parentage, has her eyes set on making history for Perlis in Sukma (Malaysia Games) track cycling at the Cheras Velodrome here this weekend.
Jupha, who turned 18 last month, has more reasons to be inspired on track as it could well be the last time she competes as a sprinter.
Jupha will be switching her focus to track endurance and she hopes to end her gold medal drought in Sukma.
Pretty rider: Jupha Somnet will be switching her focus to track endurance after the Sukma. Inset: Jupha is of Thai-Malay parentage.
“Specific fitness tests were done on me and the findings pointed to a better career for me if I focus on the endurance races,” she said.
“I’m willing to give my best shot to make it happen as I want to be a top-class cyclist like Anna Meares of Australia.
“She is also someone I admire for what she has done for women’s cycling (Meares is an Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion).
“Malaysia do not have a good track endurance cyclist at the moment and that is something for me to work on.”
Jupha goes into the Sukma competitions as a firm favourite based on her achievements in the Asian junior championships in Korat early this year.
She underlined her versatility with five medals, four silvers and a bronze, from the sprint and endurance disciplines.
“I am expected to race in all the individual events. I believe I have good chances to take gold in the sprint, scratch, points and 3km individual pursuit,” said Jupha, who is making her third appearance for Perlis in Sukma.
“But competition will be stiff as the other national back-up cyclists, among them Ummi Hamimah (Terengganu) and Lauretta Eva Adrian (Sabah), are also strong contenders.
“In fact, Lauretta was my team-mate when we won Malaysia’s first-ever silver medal in team pursuit at the Asian Juniors this year.”
Perlis will certainly welcome any golden performance as it does not come often to them.
They won six gold medals at the Games in Malacca last year.
The cycling events contested for men and women from June 4-7 are individual pursuit, team pursuit, scratch, points race, time trial, sprint, team sprint and keirin.
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