When Marione Fourie settles into her starting blocks to race the 100-metre hurdles at the World Championships in Budapest, she will aim to qualify for the final.

If she does, she will be the first South African female athlete to do so in the short hurdles race. She finished fifth in the semi-finals during last year's World Athletics Championships in Eugene, USA. Fourie clocked 12.93 seconds to equal her personal best time.

A lot has changed since then. For one, the BSportSci student at Tuks is a lot faster. In July, she set a new South African record of 12.55 seconds. Fourie has also grown in confidence. She already predicted in April that she would set a new record.

Her confidence was not unfounded. Fourie's hurdling technique is near perfect. It has led to her being very consistent in the times she has been running. In South Africa, her winning times mainly varied between 13.01s and 12.98s. She has been better in Europe. She has consistently been running 12.7 seconds.

Fourie will start the World Athletics Championships as the 12th fastest 100-metre hurdler. The USA's Nia Ali, with a time of 12.30s, is the fastest.

Fourie admits to having a slight case of the jitters.

"To be honest, I am more nervous before this World Athletics Championships than I was last year. I viewed last year as a learning experience. The difference now is that I have set myself a definite goal. That is, to compete in the final. But in sports, you can never take anything for granted. I will have to be at my best.

"Being nervous is not all bad. From personal experience, being slightly nervous can be good, as it gets the adrenaline pumping. Ensuring I am only focused on running my own race will be essential on race day. It boils down to controlling the controllable.

"It does not help to overthink things, as each race has unique challenges. So I will take it one race at a time. Racing it to the best of my abilities"

According to the Tuks student, she is starting to be at her best after the fourth hurdle.

"That is when I reach my top speed, which I can carry through until the end. In the build-up to Worlds, I have worked to improve my start and to be more 'smooth' over the first three hurdles."

It is a given that no race is ever won on paper or by playing around with statistics. An athlete has got to put in the hard work to succeed. Still, when reading through the 100-meter hurdles results of the last two Olympic Games and the last three World Championships, Fourie has a real chance to compete in the final and maybe even medal. This is in consideration if she can come close to running 12.55 seconds.

At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and 2017 World Champs, a time of 12.55 seconds would have been good enough to win silver, and during the 2020 Tokyo Games, bronze.