WITH a colourful track record of sporting achievements since her first participation in sports, athletics precisely, 18-year-old Merewai Cumu has always been a high achiever.
She started scooping medals since she competed in the Chow games at Class 6 until Class 8, representing Burua Youth Memorial Primary School of Vunamoli, Nadi.
Cumu’s 800m record of 2.25.89 she set at the FMF Chow Games in 2011 stands to date after she broke Ra’s Timalesi Marama’s 24-year-old record of 2.26.60 she had set back in 1987.
Despite her first choice to pursue high school at Sri Vivekananda College, she was offered a scholarship from West-based all-girls school Jasper Williams High School.
She excelled further in athletics, forming part of the winning contingent that won the Coke Games in 2013.
Her successful trial landed her a spot in the Fiji U18 team to compete in the Commonwealth Youth Games in Apia, Samoa – playing in the position of wing and rover.
She excelled further and made her debut in international rugby sevens when she was selected for the Telecom Fijiana sevens team for the World Rugby HSBC Women’s Sevens series for Atlanta and Langford 7s tournament.
Come August 6, Cumu will once again challenge herself, as she has always done, when her teammates play their first match at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
In all these achievements, Cumu tells Times Sport that it has only humbled her.
At the Commonwealth Games in Samoa, her childhood days came back in a flash when she put on the white jersey.
She remembered going into black-out mode for a split-second while her days growing up at Vunamoli with her parents and her siblings replayed itself in an instant.
“For me, when I went through to the U18, I didn’t really believe it because of the difficulty we faced in trying to leave school to come for the trials,” Cumu said.
“When I put on the jersey for the first time, my childhood days and my family just flashed before me. I thought back of my childhood days in the village, and my parents’ struggle over the years in raising me and my siblings,” she said, commending her unemployed parents’ dedication for their children.
Cumu recalled spending most of their childhood days with her siblings, the weekend in particular, out in the cassava plantation helping their parents in what needed to be done.
“We would help out in the plantation with weeding and clearing for the whole day and we would return home late in the evening.
“Sometimes, we would spend the night with them in the plantation.
“So when I wore my jersey that day, I really thought of all those times and how we lived every day. Every little experience growing up then all came back to me at once.”
With all her sporting spoils, even after earning the honour of representing her country in the international arena, this national star still humbles herself before her parents and her elders back at home.
She said for her, her parents’ and elders’ advice was always valuable.
“My parents, even my elders in the village, they talk a lot to me and every time they do, I always make sure I listen carefully and take it to heart. And I always use that as the foundation of building my career.
“Also, whenever they talk to me, I always feel good about it and it strengthens me…it gives me this new strength because I know they are there with me all the time, especially in spirit and in their prayers since I have been away from them since last year.”
Cumu’s journey to be part of Fiji’s inaugural women’s sevens rugby team to the Olympics has, of course, not been easy.
While she acknowledged the tough competition to make the team, she said her spirit to excel all the time always played a huge role personally for her.
“The training was very tough but that was to be expected. We will face hardships and challenges, and a lot of us are training and only 12 will be selected so for me personally, I had to do my best and top up my fitness every time, to be better than the first time.
“And that meant challenging myself every day to better my performances every time so every weakness that was pointed out to me, I work on it so I can improve on it and perfect it.
“I had to be better every time because I am very young and a lot of us were competing for the same positions and we had to come up and be on the same level as them.”
Dad Peniame Salaba is the proudest father saying their family is over the moon about his daughter’s achievement.
Speaking to Times Sport at their family church service at the Uprising Beach Resort last Friday, Salaba said their family was behind Cumu and her teammates when they represent the country in Rio.
He said Cumu had always loved sport, and she worked hard, which had paid off for the Fijiana prop and wing.
For Cumu, she is committed to helping her team stamp Fiji’s mark at the Rio Games next month.