Quartermiler M R Poovamma is on a roll these days. After becoming the first Indian to enter the finals of the World Youth Meet held in Ostrava last month, the 17-year-old lass was instrumental in Dakshina Kannada winning the team championship in the U-18 category in the State senior and junior athletic meet which concluded at the Sree Kanteerava stadium in Bangalore last week.
Poovamma won the 400 metres with a record-equalling performance and went a step further by clinching the 200 metres with a new meet record that incidentally was her personal best. The Mangalore girl also anchored the 4x400M relay team to gold and was befittingly adjudged the best athlete in the U-18 category, her second in as many months after winning the same in the National Youth meet held in Bangalore in June.
"My only regret was that I couldn't improve upon my personal best in the 400-metre race. There was not much competition and I enjoyed a free run right from the start to the finish. If there was some challenge in the field, I could definitely have gone a notch further," said the Kodava teenager, who shifted her base to Mangalore after her father moved to the coastal city for a job in the airport.
Coming from a rural family with no real sporting background, Poovamma has been making rapid strides in recent times and she owes it to her hard work and commitment. "Both my father (MG Raju) and mother (MR Jagi) encourage me a lot. My younger brother Manju too has plunged into the field now. Here, (State senior and junior meet) he helped the Dakshina Kannada under-16 4x400m relay team to gold and finished third in the 400 metres,” said Poovamma.
“It was Vasanth Hegde, my PE teacher during my school days, who nurtured the athlete in me and whatever I am today is because of my present coach Dinesh Kunder, under whom I have been training for the past five years. He is a great motivator," she added. 
Part of the Indian quartet, which won the 4x400 relay gold at the South Asian Games in Colombo in 2006, Poovamma, won the 400M bronze in the Bangkok leg of the Asian Grand Prix held in June this year and the icing on the cake came when she qualified for the finals in the 400 metres of the World Youth Meet last month, in the process becoming the first Indian to do so.
"Till date, I would count that as one of my best performances ever. I was disappointed with my seventh-place finish. But getting there itself was an achievement. Add to it the fact that I was part of the medley relay team which finished fifth made the Ostrava trip even more memorable," said the II PUC student of St Mary's College.
As she prepares for the South Zone junior athletic meet that begins in Puducherry on September 20, she has her priorities clear. "My aim is to keep improving my time at every meet. An individual gold medal at the international level has been eluding me. I would like to set the record straight in the Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Pune next year. From here on, I will take every meet as a stepping stone towards the goal that I have set,” declared Poovamma.