Pearse hungry for more success after maiden world title
Recently crowned World Bowls Indoor Championships gold medallist Ray Pearse will not be resting on his laurels and will be putting his best foot forward to repeat the success if the opportunity arises.
The New South Welshman teamed up with Victoria’s Samantha Atkinson to take home the mixed pairs title in Guernsey after defeating England in a nail biting final.
While it is something that the Taren Point product has been aiming for since he picked up a bowl for the first time, winning a world title in this fashion was not the way he expected it.
“It’s always something that I’ve wanted to achieve, I certainly didn’t think it was going to happen this way,” Pearse told Bowls Australia’s ‘The Right Line’ podcast.
“But world champion has got a pretty nice ring to it and it’s something that I’ve been striving for throughout my whole bowls career so it feels pretty good.”
Although both Pearse and Atkinson set their main sights on winning the respective singles campaigns that they took part in, the 39-year-old is thrilled that the pair were able to let the disappointment go after both fell in the quarterfinals to Malaysia.
He labels travelling coach Ian ‘JR’ Ewing as one of the key factors for the duo to persevere and continue their push for world glory.
“We spoke about it, Sam, myself and JR, and while the singles was the main goal so to bow out like we did was pretty disappointing,” he said.
“But it was important that we tried to let it go as much as possible and try to forget the disappointment.
“JR was instrumental in trying to regroup us in getting us together to learn from what we didn’t do too well in the singles and put it behind us.
“We got away from the club straight away and went down to the local restaurant to talk about a couple of things that we could do better in the mixed pairs.”
Pearse earned his place in Guernsey after conquering the 2023 Australian Indoor Championships, in which he managed to overcome Aron Sherriff in the quarterfinals, Chris Couchman in the semis and Darren Gordon in the decider.
Now that he has a world title under his belt, it has given him the hunger and desire to reach similar heights at this year’s indoors at Club Tweed in August.
“It’s made me a little bit more hungry going into the Australian Indoor Championships this year in August to try and go back-to-back and do it all over again,” he said.
“These opportunities don’t come around that often and it’s really hard to win any state or national title in this country.
“So I’m looking forward to August because I’ve still got that hunger and fire in the belly.”
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