2024 World Bowls Junior Indoor Championships: Final day recap
Australia’s recent dominance of international events has continued in Hong Kong with the nation claiming two gold medals at the 2024 World Bowls Junior Indoor Championships.
Competing in two of the three finals of the day, it would be men’s singles and mixed pairs joy for Australia on a sensational concluding day.
Kane Nelson became the country’s second consecutive men’s singles gold medallist following Nathan Black’s 2023 heroics after an enthralling contest against Scotland’s Paul Innes.
The Queenslander endured a slow start to the match with Innes taking a 5-2 lead after five in the opening stanza before a double and triple respectively saw the set go to the Australian.
Innes kept his focus in the second, storming home comfortably with an end to spare as he forced a three-end tiebreak to decide the conqueror.
Nelson took the ascendancy with a commanding three on the first end before his Scottish counterpart replied with a two as the pair’s battle went to the final exchange.
It would be the Queenslander who held his nerve in the final end, clinching a 7-5 2-9 4-2 victory and his maiden international medal.
The Capalaba product joined Black, Aaron Teys, Aaron Wilson, Dylan Fisher, Ben Twis and Aron Sherriff as Australians to clinch men’s singles glory at the competition.
Earlier in the day, Nelson and his teammate Kira Bourke would become Australia’s first mixed pairs gold medallists since Ellen Fife and Teys in 2018 after a sublime performance against Ruby Hill and Aaron Johnson of England.
In a rematch between the nations that contested the 2022 decider, Hill and Johnson landed the first blow to take the first set and put the Australians on the back foot.
With their backs to the wall, the Queensland teammates rebounded in style to force a deciding set tiebreak for the title.
In a stunning set of events, Bourke and Nelson netted a resounding four to open proceedings in the final stanza before another single in the following end.
Needing five to tie the contest and a six to win, the English duo would only manage a single, giving the Australians a 6-9 7-3 5-1 victory and become the third all-Australian pair to take the title after Fife and Teys in 2016 and 2018, as well as Kristina Krstic and Twist in 2015.
Australian resident and Malta representative Rebecca Rixon won the women’s singles title with a 7-4 8-4 win against the Philippines’ Angeleca Abatayo.
View the results and standings HERE
