{"id":594652,"date":"2026-09-09T05:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T05:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/594652\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T05:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T05:22:10","slug":"squash-world-championships-coll-and-king-named-as-new-zealand-medal-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/594652\/","title":{"rendered":"Squash World Championships: Coll and King named as New Zealand medal hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhether they\u2019re going to be playing thereafter we don\u2019t know, but for them, what a great opportunity to really showcase those two players against the very best in New Zealand and that was a major driver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Paul Coll is ranked No 2 in the world. Photo \/ Photosport\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Paul Coll is ranked No 2 in the world. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">Former world champion Carol Owens, who won titles representing New Zealand and Australia, was optimistic about at least one Kiwi athlete securing silverware in 2028. <\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got quite a few players that are in the top 100, but Paul\u2019s probably our best chance and obviously it\u2019s a big year for them with the Olympics and squash getting into the Olympics for the first time,\u201d Owens said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really exciting and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll be pumped to be in front of their home crowds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Joelle King has won five squash Commonwealth Games gold medals across her career. Photo \/ Photosport\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Joelle King has won five squash Commonwealth Games gold medals across her career. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">Owens was confident that New Zealand could secure a medal at the 2028 Olympics too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cJoelle and Paul are our big hopes for Olympic medals, so at least we\u2019ve got some people up there and for the first time being in the Olympics, the hype just around having squash in the Olympics alone is huge for our sport and huge for our squash community here in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Joelle King has been tipped for success in front of a home crowd at the 2028 World Championships. Photo \/ Photosport\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Joelle King has been tipped for success in front of a home crowd at the 2028 World Championships. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">Dowson also told the Herald what he expected of the athletes in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a goal in bringing home some silverware or medals at LA 2028, without a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">The New Zealand International Convention Centre in central Auckland will play host to the World Championships.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Paul Coll's recent tournament victories include London Classic and the New Zealand, Australian and British Opens. Photo \/ Photosport\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Paul Coll&#8217;s recent tournament victories include London Classic and the New Zealand, Australian and British Opens. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n<p class=\"eYVVqkRVmn\" style=\"display:none\">The event will run from February 19-27, 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhether they\u2019re going to be playing thereafter we don\u2019t know, but for them, what a great opportunity to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19330,95,806,51,5759,293063,4189,92291,15312,3012,9860,26019,10136,117,111,43,139,69,10702,20585,171525,3608,377,80,2963],"class_list":["post-594652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-19330","tag-and","tag-as","tag-auckland","tag-championships","tag-coll","tag-driving","tag-factor","tag-greatest","tag-hopes","tag-king","tag-medal","tag-named","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-players","tag-securing","tag-squash","tag-were","tag-world","tag-zealand","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}