FOR all-round athlete Malina Ngai Man-lin, it's going to be a long, hard road to the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan.
But the 24-year-old sports development officer for the Hongkong Sports Development Board is determined to finish what she has started in her new sporting love - rowing.
Ngai, a former heptathlete who holds the Hongkong women's discus record and the junior women's shotput record, took up rowing last year but already has a gold and a silver medal in the bag from the Italian national regatta in Piediluco three weeks ago.
And, without wanting to put too much pressure on her, national coach Chris Perry believes she has all the credentials to make the medal table in the next Asiad.
''She's only been with us for six months and has done very well. The competition in Italy was her first in any rowing event and to come back with a gold and a silver was a great start.
''She is a very talented athlete and is fully committed to the programme leading up to next year's Asian Games.'' Hongkong-born Ngai left the territory for Australia in 1989 to take a degree in sports administration at Canberra University. When she returned to Hongkong towards the end of 1991 she went back to track and field - but a meeting with Perry and his wife, top female sculler Ho Kim-fai, changed her sporting direction.