After breaking the 16-year-old Philippine record in women's 100-m hurdles, Sheena Atilano aims for another milestone: A Southeast Asian Games gold medal.

At the rate things are going, breaching the 13.4 second-mark, the clocking of the winner two years ago, is "very possible", Atilano told the DAILY STAR last night.

Her current personal-best of 13.65 seconds is a Philippine record and one-hundred tenths of a second faster than the mark of Elma Muros, who established the mark also in the SEA Games in 1991.

"My priority is the SEAG gold medal," she said in a telephone interview. Atilano placed fifth in the Manila SEA Games by clocking 14.46 seconds. Atilano, who earned her Management in Information Systems degree from the University of St. La Salle, is fresh from a successful campaign in the Asian Athletics Grand Prix, where she claimed one silver and two bronze medals in the three-leg event.

The 27-year-old captured the silver in the Bangkok leg, won a bronze in Guwahati and Pune, India, the site of her record-breaking performance.

Atilano started her athletic career at the La Carlota South Elementary School. In 1993, she won her first gold in the Palarong Pambansa in Ilagan, Isabela when she topped the long jump competition.

She also studied at Doña Hortensia Salas Benedicto National High School, before moving to USLS in 1997, the year she claimed the gold in the 100-m hurdles in the Palarong Pambansa in Bicol. *CPT

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