TABLE TENNIS
EBBW Vale’s Charlotte Carey is looking forward to competing in her third Commonwealth Games in Australia next year.
She is Wales’ top female table tennis player and hopes to be among the medal contenders on the Gold Coast.
At the age of just 20, Charlotte is already something of a Commonwealth Games veteran.
Her first experience of the Games came in 2010 in Delhi when she was the youngest member of the Welsh team at just 14. That, she says, was “a crazy experience” but a great learning curve.
Then came the Glasgow Games in 2014, where there was a lot of home support. She says that was one of her best experiences and it gave the family the chance to see her play.
Charlotte told the BBC that competing in the Games is a huge honour and a big goal for Welsh sportsmen and women.
She is looking forward to the Australia trip, although she admits that leading the table tennis team will bring added pressure.
Life as a professional player is a busy one. For Charlotte it involves a lot of travelling since she lives and practises in Sweden but competes in Germany, and is also kept busy representing Wales in matches at home and away.
The Welsh champion also spoke about her role as a Team Wales Athlete Commissioner for the Games.
That has involved her in helping pick the team kit and also providing feedback on the kind of things she’d like to see happening in Australia.
She’s hoping to push for the medals there, although she knows the standard of competition will be high.
Charlotte says the hope of winning medals is one of the reasons competitors get up in the morning.
“That’s the reason I go to the gym to train every day, to think about those moments, even when I’m tired or not feeling great,” she says.
“Everything is building up to the Commonwealth Games now.”