Tyla King

Tyla King (née Nathan-Wong; born 1 July 1994) is a New Zealand international rugby union player, professional rugby league player and Olympian.

She played touch rugby, tag rugby and both sevens and fifteen-a-side rugby union as a teenager before in 2012 at the age of 18 she made her debut as a professional rugby sevens player when she was selected for the New Zealand sevens team. During her time with the team, which she captained on a number of occasions, they won the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series in 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2016–17, 2018–19, 2019–20, and 2022–23. With them she won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and back-to-back gold medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

In May 2023, she was released from her contract with New Zealand Rugby to play rugby league for the Australian club St. George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL Women's Premiership. This led to her being selected in October 2023 for the New Zealand women's national rugby league team for whom she has played three matches to date. She returned to the New Zealand women sevens rugby team in early 2024 before retiring from international sevens rugby after the Paris Olympics. She is currently the highest women points scorer in the history of the women sevens series.

As well as touch, sevens rugby, fifteen-a-side and rugby league, King has represented New Zealand in tag rugby.

Nathan-Wong was born in Auckland on 1 July 1994 to Deanne and Russell Nathan-Wong. Her grandfather, David Wong was born in New Zealand to immigrants from Guangzhou. He became close friends with Roger Bailey, who would later go on to play 30 times for the New Zealand national rugby league team between 1961 and 1970. As a result of their friendship Wong began playing rugby league as a youth for Ponsonby at a time when it was unusual for a person of Asian descendent to play contact sports. He progressed to the senior grades during which time his team in 1967 won the region's premier competition, the Fox Memorial Shield. That same year Wong became the full-blooded Chinese to play for the Auckland team. All four of Wong's daughters initially tried playing rugby league but found that their small statue made it tough to handle the physical contact so they switched to playing touch rugby. Korina and Michele becoming provincial touch representatives, while Sheree and Deanne, represented New Zealand.

Nathan-Wong’s father, Russell (who is of part-European part-Maori descent) played rugby league in his youth. She grew up in the Auckland suburb of Blockhouse Bay and attended Blockhouse Bay Primary School. At primary school the first sport that Nathan-Wong played was mixed gender under-nines rugby league, and she was the only girl playing. She was eventually forced to give up rugby league as mixed gender teams ended at the age of 10 and at the time there was not pathway to continue playing in a female only competition. Following primary school she attended Blockhouse Bay Intermediate.

Her secondary education was received at Lynfield College. At Lynfield she competed in athletics, basketball, football and taekwondo (in which she obtained a red belt). Because of her short statue she wasn’t selected for the school’s intermediate basketball team. In football Nathan-Wong played In 2004 in the Metro Boys 10th Grade team; in 2004 and 2005 in the Auckland Weir Rose Bowl Football Under-12 Girls team; in 2005 in Three Kings United 13th Grade Girls Division team, in 2006 in the Three Kings United 15th Grade Girls Division 1 team; in 2008 in the West Auckland Women’s Premier Reserves team, in 2009 in both the United Soccer Under-15 Girls and the Waitakere Women’s Premier teams.

In 2011, she won the college’s senior girls' cross-country title, as well as awarded the Dux Ludorum honour by the college.^{[citation needed]}