Sandra Wu Pom San, former No.1 national squash player, is a cancer patient on a mission – to inspire others to run and be healthy.
The 43-year-old Perak born but now residing in Singapore, is competing in the inaugural Asia Pacific Masters Games in Penang in athletics.
She ran in the 5,000m in the 40-45 age group category on Friday and won the gold in a time of 28:16.43s ahead of Indiaâs Rachna Singh (28:18.20) and Kalpana Parmar (29:58.44)
Sandra said she only discovered she had stage 1 breast cancer this year in January.
She went for bilateral mastectomy in February and after surgery she didn’t have a full range motion of her arms, and hence, her squash activities came to an end.
âIt was then I decided to take up running seriously to still stay in sports and keep fit and healthy,â said Sandra.
âI also want to inspire others not to be floored by turn of events but to plod on. Through running, I want to inspire others to run and stay healthy,â added Sandra.
Earlier this month, Sandra run in a 21km race and came out fourth in her age group.
Sandra has big ambitions and wants to excel further and is currently training for Osaka Marathon which is in November this year.
The former technical director with the Singapore Squash Racquet Association is currently running her own Squash Academy “ULTIMATE SQUASHER” in Singapore with her two other partners.
Sandra, a professional squash player in the 90’s, represented Malaysia in Sea Games in Manila 1991 and in Singapore in 1993, Commonwealth Games in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur and World Teams Squash Championship in 1990 and 1992.
She won the Asian Junior Championship in 1992, 199 and 1995 and team member in winning the Asian Team Championship in 1992 and 1998.
Sandra began her coaching career in 2004.
Basically, she started coaching in 2004 and coached the Malaysian world junior women’s team in 2005 and 2006.
She went on to coach the Singapore National team from 2007 till 2016 before becoming their technical director.
Indeed, Sandra is an inspiration to many who has proven that with determination and will power anything is possible.
