‘We're extremely proud of her', says Nicol's father

GEORGE TOWN: “We are extremely proud of her. It was beyond any expectation of ours,” said Desmond David after his daughter Nicol was named the World Games' Greatest Athlete of All Time.

He said the recognition was a pleasant surprise, and gave credit to Malaysians, especially the Squash fraternity, for voting for Nicol from Jan 8 to Feb 1.

“We salute and thank them for their effort,” he told Bernama when contacted here yesterday.

Desmond said the family never expected such a prolific achievement from Nicol in the sport.

“When my three daughters started playing squash, I just wanted them to enjoy playing some sport.

“After doing very well at the junior level, Nicol wanted to try the professional level, while the other two, Lianne Marie, and Cheryl Therese went on to university.

“We don't know what we did right...all we did was give her our support and trusted that she will always do her best no matter what the result,” he said.

Desmond said Nicol would now begin a new phase of her life and would be busy with it.

He also thanked the National Sports Council for allowing Nicol to train under Liz Irving in Amsterdam, a move that proved to be the best decision for his daughter's squash career.

Nicol, who famously held the world number one ranking for 108 consecutive months, garnered the majority vote in an online poll on the official World Games website https:// www.theworldgames.org, defeating 23 other athletes for the title.

As the sole Asian candidate, Nicol proved to be in a class of her own by receiving 318,943 votes, a commanding 200,000vote lead over her closest challenger James Kehoe, a tug of war athlete from Ireland.

Kehoe secured 113,120 votes to take second place, followed by powerlifting athlete Larysa Soloviova from Ukraine in third, with 80,790 votes. Bernama