AS TEENAGER Taiye Musa positioned herself at the start line for her first competitive 100m race, she had dreams of competing at the 2016 Olympics flashing through her head.
The then 16-year-old, who had only been training for a few months, still had the opening ceremony ingrained on her mind and the image of storming to victory as she heard "ready, set...".
But as the starting gun went off, her ideas of a perfect start to her running career received a massive blow.
"I fell over in my first race, I didn't even finish it," said Miss Musa, describing that moment her career nearly ended before it had got going.
"The first thing I thought was I needed to take a lesson from it. I just thought I didn't want to be bad at this, it made me want to do better."
But she admits she couldn't have imagined just how much better it could get in a few short months, after becoming the 100m Surrey County Champion.
This achievement was incredible, not just because how her first race ended but also because she had competed against runners with years of experience.
Her trainer, Steve Crane, described the day the wishful teen first walked into Reigate College.
"She came in and wanted to talk to someone about training," said Mr Crane. "We got chatting and I said look for an athletics club and go down and see how it goes."
But after finding a club in Crawley, and after weeks of disappointment that she wasn't improving, Taiye once again sought the coach out who set to work with Reigate College trainers to get her where she wanted to be.
Mr Crane continued: "We got her running against a few people and St Bede's track donated a set of blocks for us to use."
It's not been an easy journey for the Earlswood teen, with hours of training going alongside a part-time job and work.
"There was one point I was proper stressed because I was working and doing school work and then going training every day," the 17-year-old said.
"Every day I was doing something – I would be running at lunch breaks. People would be telling me 'you can't do it' so there was lots of motivation in that."
And earlier this year, the young track star put her first race demons behind her when she stormed to victory in the Surrey County Championships.
"I was just thinking of getting to the finish," she said. "I think if you do that you run faster, but I didn't expect to win at all.
"The day I went I was so scared, everyone looked perfect for the events, they had , all the gear – I didn't even have any blocks."
After capping the season by beating her personal best times in the 100m and 200m races, Taiye has her eyes set on the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
