Joelle King was the queen of the Commonwealth Games four years ago.
The squash player came home with a gold and a silver, but now she is preparing for Glasgow. After rising nine places in the world rankings since Delhi, she has a good shot at success.
King heads into Glasgow ranked third in the Commonwealth for singles, so she will be favoured to be amongst the medals.
She was New Zealand's most successful athlete four years ago, winning gold in the doubles with Jaclyn Hawkes and silver in the mixed doubles with Martin Knight.
The 25-year-old will combine with Knight again in Glasgow, but with Hawkes retired, she will play alongside Amanda Landers-Murphy in the doubles.
"I'm in three events and it's a really big task," she says. "Two full weeks of squash back-to-back, but like I said before, it's what we train for, we're professional athletes."
That means they are expected to produce the results.
"We would like to come back with three medals," says coach Paul Hornsby.
"It's very important for us to get three medals, but we think if we can get exceptional performances throughout the team then that could be four or five."
That would be the ultimate achievement, given the importance of the Commonwealth Games.
"This is the pinnacle," says King. "It was a really disappointing year last year for squash not to make it into the Olympics. We know how much that could change our sport, so this is absolutely the pinnacle for us."
If King can compete with success on that stage, she may move even closer to getting that number one.
3 News
source: newshub archive
