Shy teen Gavin Hubbard led his school boy's weightlifting team to glory long before most of his fellow female Olympic competitors were even born.
Today, having gender transitioned and become Laurel Hubbard in 2012, she is hoping to claim a medal for New Zealand in the women's 87+kg event in Tokyo.
She stunned the world in 2017 when she burst onto the scene after a 16-year hiatus from the sport which she said she had taken up as a boy to appear more masculine before the pressure of living as a man became too much to bear.
Hubbard was born in 1978 to Diana Reader and breakfast cereals tycoon and former Mayor of Auckland Richard 'Dick' Hubbard.
Students from her 1994 graduating class remember her only as 'Gavin' - an academic and quiet student who spent most of his days training in the gym at the exclusive $22,000-a-year Saint Kentigern Boys' College.
Laurel just before she transitioned at 35 years old with her parents Diana Reader and former Mayor of Auckland Richard 'Dick' Hubbard' (centre)
Hubbard (circled, as Gavin) transitioned from a man to a woman in 2012 at 35, after training and competing in male weightlifting competitions since she was a teenager
The athlete, pictured left before undergoing her transition, previously competed in men's weightlifting competitions, setting junior records in 1998. Right: Hubbard on stage during the Women's +90kg Final during the Weightlifting on day five of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, after he transition
The incredibly-private weightlifter was shy and awkward even then, before turning into a recluse after graduation and reappearing more than a decade later as Laurel.
'I can't remember Gavin having too many friends at school. He never really seemed to fit in,' one peer told Daily Mail Australia.
Gavin captained his high school team to glory, coming first in the 99kg over-16s Junior National Championships and second in the 108kg weight division at the Northern Region Secondary School Championships.
At 20, Hubbard set a junior record in the 105+kg category with a total lift of 300kg.
However, his successes at junior level would never have been enough to qualify for a spot on the men's senior national team.
Despite his high school team's overall success, Hubbard's individual results in junior male competitions would never have been enough to qualify for a position on the men's senior national team.
Hubbard revealed in a 2017 interview that she started weightlifting as a young man to try and become more masculine, but said 'sadly that wasn't the case.'
In 2001, at 23, Hubbard quit the sport as the pressure of living as a man became too much.
'It just became too much to bear... the pressure of trying to fit into a world that perhaps wasn't really set up for people like myself,' she said.
She transitioned and came out as a woman in her mid 30s - and has been extremely private since.
Then she shocked the sporting world by winning two World Championship silver medals in the 90kg class in California in 2017.
'I'm not here to change the world,' she said after the victory. 'I just want to be me and do what I do.'
The decision to re-enter high profile weightlifting as a woman seemed provocative to many people.
On top of that, in 2018, she was charged with careless driving causing injury after her car caused a major accident in Queenstown.
She lost control of her vehicle and hit a car carrying an elderly Australian couple, Gary and Sue Wells, giving Mr Wells
