MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Newly crowned Jamaican 400 metres champion Novlene Williams-Mills says she hopes by competing at the World Athletics Championships she will inspire fellow cancer sufferers after she battled against the illness for the past year.

The 31-year-old, who showed great grit when she won Olympic 4x400m relay bronze last year having been diagnosed with breast cancer just before the Games, said when she lines up for the 400m heats today in Moscow it will be another “baby step” on her road back.

“It was a very hard time for me,” she said after completing training.

“I am a breast cancer survivor, but at the same time I don’t want people to label me as such.

“However, if I can help to inspire other people suffering from cancer then I can say that I have served a purpose.”

Williams-Mills, who won individual bronze at the 2007 World Championships, said her motivation as an athlete had changed markedly since undergoing surgery no less than four times, including a double mastectomy with the last operation in January.

“Every time I had surgery I thought great, this is the last one and then the doctor calls and I go back for another one and I end up with four operations by January and I say to myself ‘This is crazy’.

“My priorities may not have changed but my motivations are different now.

“I see myself as a fighter not as a competitor.”

Williams-Mills, who apart from the emotional relay medal in London last year, has also won two other 4x400m relay Olympic bronze medals, said being diagnosed with cancer had caused her to reassess certain things.

“When you think of cancer, breast cancer as I had, it is quite a shock because you have no control over it,” she said.

“You are fighting your body, not other athletes, but that helped me. It brought out the competitive side of me. There is no way I told myself that I am going to give up.

“Life will change, no doubt about it. Things that you have taken for granted go out the window. One minute you go to the doctor with not a worry and the next minute you are walking out the door in shock at being told you have cancer.

“However, I believe that now I am mentally stronger. I look at situations differently.”

Williams-Mills, who did not publicise her illness at first preferring to keep it just among her close family including her husband Jameel, said anything was possible on the track now she had won the national title.

“When I won I thought this is crazy as well. Ok, it is for me another, as I call it, baby step, but an important one as well. Now I think anything is possible when I walk out there on Saturday.

“If I win I will celebrate, but of course just running is a way of showing you have won.

“I won’t be celebrating in the traditional way as my husband isn’t here but I will go and have a drink and dance.”