2023 World Bowls Championships: Fours preview
The fours at the 2023 World Bowls Championships on the Gold Coast is set to provide some of the most intense action at this year’s tournament with an enormous amount of talent throughout the field.
Australia claimed women’s honours in 2016 with New Zealand clinching the men’s title at home, however just one of the eight gold medallists will be in attendance in Queensland.
Kelsey Cottrell will return with Kristina Krstic, Dawn Hayman and Lynsey Clarke as the Jackaroos look to claim a third women’s fours crown in four events, having taken the gold medal in 2008 in addition to seven years ago.
Cottrell and Clarke are both two-time World Champions and have won a gargantuan amount of tournaments together, including a whopping eight Australian Opens, and with the latter calling time on her international career after the tournament the duo would dearly love to head to the top step of the podium in their home city.
Krstic brings a Commonwealth Games gold and Hayman is one of the form players on Australian soil, making this quartet one of the most formidable.
New Zealand’s squad of Leeane Poulson, Selina Goddard, Val Smith and Katelyn Inch exudes a wealth of experience at international events, with all three of Goddard, Smith and Inch medalling in Birmingham last year.
The mercurial Smith is a two-time World Champion and boasts a trophy cabinet that most could only dream of, while Poulson has kicked the door down for her selection thanks to some sensational form.
Since 2008 only Scotland’s women have dethroned the Australians, and the contingent of Carla Banks, Claire Anderson, Stacey McDougall and Caroline Brown will be firing for another shot at glory.
Brown was one of those conquerors in 2012 and the 42-year-old would be itching for another chance to etch her name into the history books at the World Championships.
South Africa’s Thabelo Muvango, Francesca Baleri, Esme Kruger and Anneke Snyman will be one of the favourites to go deep into the event following the heroics of Muvango, Kryger and Snyman in the same event at the Commonwealth Games last year that saw the country come home with a silver medal.
Ireland’s Ashleigh Rainey, Sarah Kelly, Shauna O’Neill and Chloe Wilson have all enjoyed solid green time in Australia over the past year that will hold them in good stead, while the English lineup of Sophie Tolchard, Jamie-Lea Marshall, Lorraine Kuhler and Amy Pharaoh is about as star-studded as it gets.
Tolchard, Marshall and Pharaoh have all earned medals at major international events previously, and will be one of the toughest prospects in this year’s field.
Other notables will be Canada’s Jordan Kos, Emma Boyd, Baylee van Steijn and Joanna Cooper, as well as Wales’ Sara Nicholls, Bethan Russ, Ysie White and Laura Daniels.
Norfolk Island will also be a tough prospect with Carmen Anderson at the helm the squad also consisting of Ellie Dixon, Carla Miles and Petal Jones, as will Malaysia’s quartet of Aleena Nawawi, Ain Nabilah Tarmizi, Syafiqa Haidar Rahman and Azlina Arshad.
The men’s draw sees a completely different New Zealand lineup than the championship winning team in Christchurch as Tony Grantham, Chris Le Lievre, Lance Pascoe and Sheldon Bagrie-Howley suit up for the Blackjacks.
Australia’s quartet of Corey Wedlock, Aaron Teys, Carl Healey and Aron Sherriff will be tough to beat at home, especially with Sherriff’s recent form on the Gold Coast greens having taken home two Australian Open titles in addition to a silver medal.
Ireland will be buoyed by its recent Commonwealth Games triumph in this very discipline, and with three members of the championship team heading to Queensland the team has every right to be.
Adam McKeown, Ian McClure and Martin McHugh will all aim to replicate their Birmingham glory, with teammate Stuart Bennett sure to be hungry to bring his country more success at a major international event.
England will be salivating at the opportunity to clinch a first gold in the men’s event since 1996, and with a team of Louis Ridout, Ed Morris, Nick Brett and Jamie Walker it will be hard to go past the British as one of the favourites for gold.
Finally, Wales’ Owain Dando, Chris Klefenze, Ross Owen and Jarrad Breen will look to regain the mantle for the first time since 2000.
Both of India’s fours teams, once revealed, will be one to watch out for following the women’s title and men’s silver in Birmingham last August.
The World Bowls Championships runs from August 29 to September 10, 2023, on the Gold Coast.
