Meet the 14-Year-Old Singaporean Girl Named ‘World’s Fastest Flyer’

“When I was smaller I used to draw pictures of myself flying over Singapore. I even wanted to be an astronaut, to float in zero gravity,” said 14-year-old Kyra Poh.

Kyra was only nine when she discovered her love for flying. Her mom, an advertising executive, needed a child to appear in the commercial and so asked her to try out the indoor flying facility. And what was supposed to be an advert stint became Kyra’s passion.

The teenager dedicated her time to practice three times a week and made it a point to do more when it was competition season. Because she doesn’t have gymnastics or a background in dance that improves flexibility, she made up for it by doing lots of stretching.

From an inexperienced point of view, indoor skydiving looks pretty easy. But in reality, it involves a lot of work and takes a great deal of effort.

“You use all your muscles for this sport. Even those muscles you never knew existed, they will start to ache. Even your wrists will hurt,” said Kyra.

In addition to the growing feathers on her cap, Kyra was recently crowned as the “World’s Fastest Flyer” during the Wind Games competition that happened in Catalonia, Spain. There were approximately 200 competitors that joined the contest and not only was Kyra one of the few females, she was also the youngest, BBC noted.

The 14-year-old flyer was able to beat other adults in the solo category wherein a contestant should be able to complete a routine at the fastest time possible. She also took home the freestyle gold medal where she was judged based on the difficulty of her moves. In all, she beat her competitors by a wide margin, taking home two gold medals.

Aside from her newest victories, Kyra also snagged the gold medal at the freestyle category at the FAI World Cup of Indoor Skydiving that took place last year in Poland.