2023 World Bowls Championships: a fairytale
The 2023 World Bowls Championships has now been over for more than a week and what a fairytale it was, even more so because of the seven year gap from Christchurch 2016.
Across both weekends bowls fans saw the world’s best battle it out for history with champions proving themselves for the first time either on debut or after more than a decade of perseverance.
There was also the narrative arc of Right at Home Jackaroo Lynsey Clarke, who’s time in the green and gold concluded in the most remarkable fashion, claiming the women’s triples title with Dawn Hayman and Kelsey Cottrell in the final match of her glittering international career.
Making her debut in 2003, the Gold Coast native capped off her two-decade tenure in the Australian squad with her third gold medal to go with her 2008 and 2012 triumphs, going out quite literally on top of the world.
Later on the final Sunday it was the men’s singles final and it would be a maiden title in the discipline to either Ryan Bester or Gary Kelly.
Both had conquered the pairs on previous occasions, with the Canadian winning his nation’s only previous gold in 2004 and the Irishman winning with Adam McKeown just eight days prior at Club Helensvale.
Bester’s record in the singles category was well documented, having been so close yet so far over the years.
In 2008 he lost 21-20 in an agonisingly close semifinal to Malaysia’s Safuan Said to claim the bronze, in 2012 he took silver after falling to Leif Selby and in 2016 it was Shannon McIlroy who denied the now Broadbeach local in the decider.
It wasn’t just at the World Championships either, as he was defeated by Aaron Wilson in the final of the 2018 Commonwealth Games and by Darren Burnett in 2014, while also accruing a bronze in 2006.
The 2023 contest commenced in tight fashion, with nobody claiming multiple ends in a row in the first half before Kelly managed to edge to a 16-13 buffer.
Fittingly, it was Bester’s drive that propelled him to his destiny and finally the weight of the world was off his shoulders as he climbed to the top step of the podium.
The fairytale was alive for Kelly as well, having clinched his own gold in the pairs and putting his Aaron Wilson curse to bed, having lost to the Australian in the 2016 pairs final and 2022 Commonwealth Games singles decider.
In the para disciplines, the glistening narrative was well and truly alive for all of the gold medallists, with Jake Fehlberg the most notable as the first ever para bowler to earn a gold at both the World Championships and the Comm Games.
Aron Sherriff enjoyed a simply stunning tournament, becoming Australia’s most successful male bowler at the event with his second and third gold medals coming across the fortnight.
The Queenslander, Corey Wedlock and Carl Healey would become the first Jackaroo men to win multiple championships at the same event and joined Brett Wilkie as multiple gold medallists.
The trio also became the first men’s triples champions from Australia since the inaugural tournament in 1966.
Finally, Rebecca and Connie Rixon’s stunning run to the women’s pairs final earned Malta’s first ever medal at the tournament after emerging from a group containing both of the Birmingham finalists from last year.
The duo overcame the strong challenge of Norfolk Island’s Carmen Anderson and Shae Wilson in the quarters before dispatching England’s Sophie Tolchard and Amy Pharoah in the semis.
Malaysia would ultimately prove too strong in the final, but the Maltese sisters established themselves as world class players across a scintillating fortnight in the state that they call home.
