Joelle King: Kiwi squash champion on being ruled out of the 2026 Commonwealth Games

Kiwi squash champion Joelle King won't be adding to her collection of medals in the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

The stripped-down Glasgow event will only feature 10 sports - with rugby sevens, hockey, cricket, road cycling and squash among the sports that got axed. 

King says she can't change this decision - but she's got the 2028 Olympics to soften the blow.

"It's been bad news for all of us - but you've just got to crack on, you can't change the decision now." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ever, dup.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Now, as we know, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games going to
be cut back to ten sports. That means a whole
bunch of sports will miss out, including hockey, seven's, rugby
and squash, which is tough news for Kiwi athletes competing
in these codes, and one of them, obviously is Joel King,
who's won eight Commonwealth Games medals and squash five of them.
Gold is with us now, Joel, Hello, Hi, how are

(00:22):
you there. You don't sound that gutted.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Oh, you know, it's been bad news for all of us,
but you just got to you've got to crack on. No,
you can't change the decision now, and we've now got
the Olympics that we've just got to try and focus on.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I suppose it's a bit of a consolation prizes
and that is actually going to be at the Olympics definitely.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
I mean it's throughout my career, you know, which has
been eighteen years now, it's been the thing that has
squash has always tried to achieve, is to get to
the Olympics. So it's it's I guess a bittersweet because
the Komwalth Games also for us as New Zealanders has
always been the pinnacle, so it's a bit of a

(01:04):
catch twenty two. I think, you know, there's there's a
rainbow on the other side of it. But you know,
the Komworth Games has always got a special place for
us as athletes and also the New Zealand community.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
The thing is, you were one hundred percent going to
get a medal at the comm Games in Glasgow. How
do you rate your chances though, in a wider field
at the Olympic Games in twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I mean, obviously, you know, taking into first of all,
my age in twenty twenty eight, I'm going to be
thirty nine years old, so that's a spener in the works.
But I think what the kind of interesting thing about
this new campaign, which is the Olympics, is that it's
something completely new, not only in terms of you know,

(01:48):
the first time going for the Olympics, but for me
a complete change in focus. You know, normally it's week in,
week out out on the PSA World Tour focusing on that,
but now it's you know, sort of going four years
ahead and working our way backwards to try and peak
for that. So, you know, I think that if the
Olympics there is anything to go by, and what we

(02:10):
saw even a bit this year is you know, you
quite often see the dark horses come through and the
ones that are expected quite often can't handle the pressure.
You know, it's a it's a total different ball game.
And I think the interesting thing for us, the Commonwalth
Games athletes is we've had a bit of exposure to

(02:30):
it with the Klonwalth Games. For some of the other
countries they've never even played anything like that comes close
to it. So yeah, there's there's a few pros and
cons definitely, but yeah, I'm excited to just give it
a go.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, good stuff. Hey Beast of lud Joellen, thanks very much.
I mean you are a lesson in keeping your chin up.
That's Juelle King, five time Commonwealth Games gold medalist, So
I guess you don't get to being a gold medalist
that many times over without having some discipline in your head. Right.
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(03:04):
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