BAGHDAD - Iraqi sprinter Dana Abdul-Razzaq has dodged bullets to pursue her love of running, her determination to succeed pushing her to become Iraq's only female athlete at the Beijing Olympics.

Iraqi sprinter Dana Abdul-Razzaq stretches during a training session in al-Shaab National Stadium in Baghdad March 18, 2008. Abdul-Razzaq will be Iraq's only female athlete at the Beijing Olympics. [Agencies] Related readings: Young Afghan woman runs toward Olympics despite jeers

Few athletes will have faced the obstacles 21-year-old Abdul-Razzaq has overcome to reach Beijing, from a sniper's bullets to a paucity of adequate training facilities and religious and cultural opposition to female athletes.

"I love running, I have the persistence to keep practising and I have ambition despite all the problems that I face," she told Reuters at Baghdad's crumbling Shaab stadium.

Last October, Abdul-Razzaq was training with coach Yousif Abdul-Rahman at central Baghdad's Jadriya oval track before the Arab Games when a sniper opened fire nearby.

"She was dodging the bullets like in action movies," Abdul-Rahman recalled.

"She ducked to miss a bullet which hit a tree."

Abdul-Razzaq's memories of the incident are slightly less heroic. "After it was over, I fainted," she said.

"I was back practising half an hour later, but we used the other side of the playing field," she said.

Another time, gunmen opened fire as the pair drove home from training through Saidiya, one of southern Baghdad's most dangerous districts.

"My coach told me to lie down and he drove at very high speed," Abdul-Razzaq said. "I was crying but I survived, thank God. I didn't tell my parents about it."

Such violence has become a part of everyday life for Iraqis, with tens of thousands killed in an insurgency and sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein five years ago.

Having survived the gunmen's bullets, Abdul-Razzaq went on to set a new Iraqi record for the 200 metres, running a time of 24.80 seconds at the Arab Games in Cairo last November to lower the previous mark by almost 0.3 of a second. She came fourth in the race overall.