When the Cape weightlifter Babalwa Ndleleni-Ramahlape moved from obscurity into national media limelight after her bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, she decided she won't be returning to the shadows any time soon.
In fact, she has set her sights on even further fame as she states that being "good" only in South Africa is more like not being good at all.
"I want to go far... much further," she said.
Last week Ndleleni-Ramahlape won three African championship titles in the continental championships in Morocco - and in all three events she achieved new South African records.
Ndleleni-Ramahlape, who competes in the 75kg category, won the snatch, lifting 85kg, before lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk to finish with a total of 192kg.
That total is a 10kg overall improvement on her Commonwealth Games performance where she finished with a total of 182kg.
"Ever since my bronze medal in Melbourne there are so many people in Gugulethu and Nyanga who have joined the gym and taken up weightlifting thinking they will go to a Commonwealth Games or win a medal.
"I tell them 'you don't just pick up weights and be a champion, you have to work hard and I tell them it took me eight years to get here'," she says.
Ndleleni-Ramahlape says she never stopped training after Melbourne and went on to win three gold medals in the SA championships in July.
A pre-school teacher by day and weightlifter by night, Ndleleni-Ramahlape keeps her regular training programme in a gym in Nyanga six days a week.
"After a tiring day playing with the children I drag myself to the gym after work because I want success and that is my motivation to go on."
Ndleleni-Ramahlape started weightlifting through a development programme that was run in schools in the late 1990s.
"When they came to our school I decided to give it (weightlifting) a try for fitness purposes. But when I watched my first competition, I also wanted to compete."
Ndleleni-Ramahlape entered competitions and was chosen to represent Western Province in the SA championships in 1999 in her first year.
She debuted for the country in the All African Games in Nigeria in 2003, an experience she says was a wake-up call.
"I went from hero to zero in those Games," she says.
"I was number one in South Africa but I finished last in Nigeria. That was the turning point in my approach and the experience was to motivate me to push myself harder.
"I realised that being good in SA is not enough, you must be good enough to rank with the best. Here I can still be number one even if I put in 80 percent effort."
Ndleleni-Ramahlape says the biggest change in her life since Melbourne is people in Gugulethu assuming she is rich.
"People think I won the lotto. They stop me in the street and ask why I don't have a car. I tell them I'm not a cricketer, I just won a medal for SA in weightlifting."
Ndleleni-Ramahlape says she tells the youth who have mushroomed (overnight) to take up weightlifting that they better be doing it for the love of the sport and not for money because there isn't any.
"It's a very costly code but you don't get any money out of it."
Ndleleni-Ramahlape will compete in the WP championships in November before competing in a tournament in Amsterdam.