Hot shots:

Which Kiwi athletes are likely to shine.

ATHLETICS

Three golds is already a staggering accomplishment but shot put champion Dame Valerie Adams (left) is aiming for her fourth consecutive Commonwealth Games gold. Adams, 33, attended her first Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 where she won silver. Since then she has won three Commonwealth golds in a row, as well as two Olympic golds and one silver. Adams gave birth to her first child, daughter Kimoana, in October last year and this will be her first major international competition since then.

Tom Walsh won gold in the shot put at last year’s World Athletics Championships and is the man to beat in this field event at the Gold Coast Games. Walsh, 26, competed at his first Olympics in Rio in 2016 where he won bronze. He is the world indoor shot put champion and now has his sights set on more gold. Expectations are high for him to deliver as hot favourite.

Eliza McCartney (left) was one of the unexpected success stories of the Rio Olympics in 2016 when she won bronze in the pole vault with a leap of 4.80m. McCartney, 21, has since extended her New Zealand pole vault record to 4.82m. This will be her first Commonwealth Games but with a ranking of number four in the world she is a top medal prospect.

GYMNASTICS

Misha Koudinov (right), 26, will be competing for the fourth time for New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games. Born in Vladivostok in Russia, Koudinov moved to New Zealand with his parents when he was a boy. He has steadily climbed the world rankings in gymnastics events and at the Rio Olympics finished 16th in the vault. He will compete in the rings, pommel, parallel bars and high bar at the Gold Coast Games.

BOXING

David Nyika (below) won gold at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in the light heavyweight division and is determined to make history on the Gold Coast – becoming the first Kiwi boxer to win back-to-back gold medals. Heavyweight Bill Kini, from Southland, holds the record as the most successful Kiwi boxer so far at the Commonwealth Games, winning gold in Kingston, Jamaica in

1966 and following this up with a silver in Perth four years later. Nyika, 22, is focused and quietly determined about his quest for double gold. “All I can do is perform my best,” Nyika says. “I never knew about Bill’s record so that’s going to add pressure but I would expect myself to do it.”

WEIGHTLIFTING

Richie Patterson (right) is set to become the first New Zealand weightlifter to compete at four Commonwealth Games. Patterson, 34, attended his first Games in 2006, won silver in the men’s 85kg event in Delhi in 2010 and then won gold at Glasgow four years later. His wife Pip, whom he married in Glasgow just days after his victory, will also be competing at the Gold Coast Games.

Laurel Hubbard (below) is the first transgender weightlifter to be named in a New Zealand Commonwealth Games team. The child of former Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard, she previously competed in weightlifting competitions as Gavin Hubbard. Last year at the IWF World Senior Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim, California, Hubbard won two silver medals. At the Gold Coast Games, Laurel will compete in the new 90kg+ weight class.

SHOOTING

Natalie Rooney, 29, really ‘shot’ to international prominence at the Rio Olympics when she won silver in the trap singles. This was New Zealand’s first medal of those Games. Last year, after impressive performances at World Cup meets in Mexico and Cyprus, Rooney (right) became the world number one trap shooter – this made her the first Kiwi, either male or female, to hold the world’s top ranking in any of the shooting disciplines. She is part of an experienced New Zealand team of 11 shooters at these Games.

SWIMMING

Bradlee Ashby (left) was named National Swimmer of the Year at the 2017 Swimming Awards. In 2016, Ashby, 22, set a New Zealand record in the individual medley and then broke his own record again last year. His performance at the Fina World Championships last year rank him as the third fastest in the Commonwealth.

TRIATHLON

Andrea Hewitt (below) won a bronze medal in her first Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and, remarkably, is still a leading contender for a Games medal 12 years later. She has won multiple medals at World Championship level, finished fourth at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and seventh at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Hewitt, 35, had a tough personal time dealing with the sudden death of her coach and fiance Laurent Vidal in 2015, so there will be plenty of heartfelt emotions if Hewitt can snare another Games medal.