China's Xie Xingfang was always a reluctant badminton player but presented with the chance to win an Olympic title on home soil, she is not going to waste her golden opportunity.
The 27-year-old world number one, one half of China's most famous sporting couple along with top ranked men's singles player Lin Dan, is hot favourite to wrest the Olympic crown away from compatriot and defending champion Zhang Ning.
Beijing will be Xie's first Olympics - because of China's great strength in depth she was left out of the team for Athens as she was then ranked only fourth in China - and is also likely to be her last.
‘My goal is clear and simple, the gold medal in the women's singles,’ she recently told local media. ‘I know it is my last chance.’
Xie was not always so motivated. When she was picked up by a Guangzhou city sports school coach at the age of 7, she showed little interest in badminton and skipped all the morning training sessions.
But her talent easily made Xie one of China's top prospects. After winning the doubles title at the world juniors with Zhang Jiewen in 1998, she was selected for the national team by coach Li Yongbo, who at once switched her to singles.
Feeling the pressure and lacking confidence, it took years for the long-time doubles player to get her first singles title at the Indonesian Open in 2003. In 2005 and 2006 she won the world titles.
The shuttler first met her boyfriend, men's world number one Lin Dan, at the age of 16 at a training base in Fujian.
Their relationship was first made public in 2004 at the All England Open. Lin's red roses and congratulatory kiss when Xie won the 2007 All Englands made the romance known around the world.
China's badminton team is comparatively tolerant of relationships between players and they were not punished as they would have been in the table tennis team, for example.
Xie said their relationship helped them during the dark days of the Athens Olympics when Xie was left out of the team and Lin was knocked out in the first round.
‘I thought she might not be able to go on until 2008,’ Lin said. ‘It took great courage and motivation for her to make it.’
Xie regained her confidence by winning six major titles in a row to become world number one in April 2005.
‘I can share my pressure with him,’ she said of Lin. ‘He is the kind of person that exerts himself to the utmost. After watching him play, I have become a bit more aggressive.’
Xie and Lin won the women's and men's singles titles at the 2006 world championships in Madrid as well as the 2006 and 2007 All England Open.
The pair are known as the ‘Condor Couple’, a nickname which has its origins in a novel by Louis Cha. The book describes the adventures of an impetuous young warrior and his calm, elder lover.
‘After the Olympics I can finally live the life I really want to with holidays, studying and marriage ... I am really looking forward to it,’ said Xie.
‘I just want to be the woman who cooks soup for Dan after the Games,’ she said.
