Nathan Robertson, this country's biggest name in badminton, has been at the top of the sport for the last decade. He still remains one of the best players in the world as the British game goes through a difficult transition period.
The Nottingham-born player, thrust into the spotlight after winning silver at the 2004 Athens Olympic games and gold two years later at the World Championships with then partner Gail Emms, is a prime example of dedication to the sport he played throughout his childhood.
"I was about five or six, when I went along to my Mother's junior badminton club. It was a natural thing to play when my parents were playing.
"My older brother played for England as a junior, so I was following in his footsteps."
There is more to Robertson than just badminton. At 6' 2", he is a more than useful basketball player, a sport he still enjoys following.
"I watch it a lot. We got to see the dream team play before the Beijing games, in a warm up match in Macau, where our training base was. That was pretty amazing. I definitely think basketball is one of the best spectator sports you can go and see.
"Sometimes when we go on trips, we try to find a court and buy a basketball. It's just for fun really. We don't use it for training or anything."
Despite playing basketball in school, badminton remained his main sport as he travelled around, playing in junior tournaments and developing his game. It was only by chance that he struck up the formidable partnership enjoyed with Emms, a player he came to know through the junior circuit.
"We were the same age. We came up through junior badminton together and were near the top in our age groups. When you are a junior, you've got to ask each other to play. I think Gail came up to me at one tournament, all shy and asked: 'Can we play?' and I said 'Yeah, ok'.
"We were just a couple of moody teenagers asking each other to play when we were about 14 or 15."
From there they went on to become the number one mixed pair in the World, finishing runners-up in Athens and victors in Madrid, two-years later.
Winning the World Championships in 2006 is a major achievement for Robertson, who along with Emms beat his best friend on the circuit, Anthony Clark and partner Donna Kellogg. Despite this, it is missing out on the illustrious Olympic title which sticks with him.
"Obviously it doesn't get much better than becoming World champion, apart from becoming Olympic champion and I'm yet to achieve that. Becoming World champion was definitely up there [as an achievement], but I think the Olympic medal brings with it so much more than a world medal. It brings more profile to the sport, and personally, there's a lot more that comes with an Olympic medal."
With the 2012 Olympics just over two-years away, it looks like the last chance for Robertson to win Olympic Gold, but he is looking at it positively.
"I'm still playing at the top of my game in the men's doubles, which is good. We're still competing against the best in the world. I think it's realistic to say that we can do that for two-years only and then after the 2012 games it will definitely be retirement time.
"It should be a great way to go out, especially if we can do what we want to do leading up to those games. We are taking it tournament by tournament at the moment, but with badminton we've got a lot of big events coming up, such as the European Championships in April in Manchester, and then the World Championships in London."
Retirement will allow Nathan a new focus, whether it is golf, turning his hand to poker, or pursuing his current interest of scrabble.
"I do like scrabble. I've been playing it quite a while now. I'm not too bad, it's one of my finer skills.
"The biggest word score I've got is 163, which is a very big score. I certainly don't know anyone else who has got one like that on Facebook scrabble anyway, well not any of my friends. At times I play a lot of the other badminton players, but they are not quite up to standard yet.
"I used to host a poker night once a week and all the other badminton players would come around and play. It was always a little bit competitive, but also a lot of fun, but I've not been doing it of late."
Regardless of his Scrabble achievements, the only success Robertson will be interested in is Olympic glory in London. It is the only piece of the puzzle missing in his career.
