Kiwis Joelle King and Amanda Landers-Murphy have won one last Commonwealth Games gold medal for New Zealand, taking out the women's squash doubles at Birmingham.
Landers-Murphy retired, after helping King to victory at Gold Coast 2018, but returned for another crack at the prize, giving New Zealand a useful lefthand-righthand combination that their opponents struggled to deal without throughout the draw.
She and King proved to slick for England's Sarah-Jane Perry and Alison Waters, prevailing 11-8 11-8 at the Birmingham University venue to retain their crown without dropping a game all week.
The NZ pair jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the opening game, but lost momentum, when Landers-Murphy conceded a stroke and England went on a 6-1 run.
"It's quite a mental thing, doubles," said King. "Momentum can switch quite easily and even if you're up by 3-4 points, it doesn't mean anything.
"To be fair to them, they stuck to their guns to the very end and we had to find something pretty special to win that match."
But the Kiwis came back to win the final five points of the game and the first two of the second, which followed a similar pattern, until King and Landers-Murphy captured five straight points to hold three matchballs. They only needed two and took just 30 minutes to complete the victory.
After the disappointment of missing a medal in singles, which she also won four years ago, King has bounced back to team with Landers-Murphy and men's champion Paul Coll for two doubles gold, and had certainly regained her swagger.
Her five gold medals over three Games now tie discus thrower/shot putter Val Young and para swimmer Dame Sophie Pascoe as the most won by a Kiwi at the Commonwealth Games.
"As we've been saying all week about both of my pairings, it's the connection, it's the friendship, it's the whānau feeling we have that gets us through every time," she said. "I'm extremely grateful to take the court with her and grateful she said yes.
"She was happy in retirement, but I think she's happy she came back and did this."
Landers-Murphy won't quite commit to returning again in four more years, but admits this medal is special.
"It's almost more special than the first one," she admitted. "It's been a tough road for a number of reasons and I've had Joelle there supporting me the whole way.
"It's an unreal feeling to be here and defend our title."
The result brings New Zealand's final medal tally at Birmingham to 49 - including a record 20 golds - but the final day saw they slip behind India to fifth on the medal table, also trailling Australia, England and Canada.
