Nelly Korda will begin her defense of the Olympic women's golf title on Wednesday at Le Golf National, entering as the gold-medal favorite despite recent struggles. The world number one is aiming to regain her early season form, which saw her win six out of seven events, including her second major at the Chevron Championship.

Korda's impressive streak included a record-breaking victory at the Americas Open in May, making her the first LPGA Tour player to win six times in a single season since 2013. However, her form has since dipped, highlighted by a disastrous US Open performance where she scored a 10 on a par-three hole, leading to three consecutive missed cuts and a tied-26th finish at the Evian Championship in July.

"The game of golf is a funny game," Korda remarked on Monday. "Sometimes you feel on top of the world and in a matter of a couple seconds, you just feel like you're on the bottom of the sea."

Korda secured gold in Tokyo three years ago, narrowly defeating Japan's Mone Inami and Lydia Ko. Both Korda and her sister Jessica are Olympians, following in the footsteps of their mother, former Czech tennis player Regina Rajchrtova. Their father, Petr Korda, the 1998 Australian Open tennis champion, never competed in the Olympics, while their brother Sebastian chose not to participate in Paris, instead winning the ATP title in Washington to reach a career-high ranking of world number 18.

"We always make fun of the boys because we say that the girls in the Korda family are the only ones that are the Olympians and the boys are not," Nelly Korda said. "So we have that above them in the family."

Korda will be playing alongside South Korean star Ko Jin-young and Chinese world number five Yin Ruoning in the initial rounds.

**Lydia Ko Seeks to Complete Olympic Medal Set**

New Zealander Lydia Ko, the only golfer with multiple individual Olympic medals, is also competing, having won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo. This season, Ko has demonstrated good form, securing her 20th LPGA Tour title in January.

"I've got the most medals both in the women's and men's side in golf, so that's a pretty cool thing to have," Ko said. "If I can leave Paris with another medal, that will be very special to me because you just never know what's going to happen in the future."

Ko mentioned that her sister holds her silver medal and her father the bronze, but she plans to reclaim them if she wins gold this weekend. "If I win the gold, I'm definitely taking all of them back and I'm going to find a way to kind of present all three," she added.

**French Hopes on Celine Boutier**

France's hopes rest on 2023 Evian champion Celine Boutier, who has slipped from third to seventh in the world rankings after a series of tournaments without a top-10 finish. Boutier is optimistic about her participation, noting the significance of the event for French golf.

"I think it's going to be huge for France and huge for golf in France," Boutier said. "Personally I don't really think about inspiring people yet. I'm just trying to get to hopefully Wednesday, and then just one day at a time."

As the competition begins, all eyes will be on these top contenders as they navigate the challenging course and aim for Olympic glory.