The Australian Open Lawn Bowls Championship was held over a 2 week period in June 2022 at the wonderful Gold Coast facilities at Broadbeach, Helensvale and Mermaid Bowls Clubs.
For the first time this year, Thailand sent a team to compete in the special category designed for bowlers with disabilities. Together with Coaches Sonthi and Tong, 6 bowlers Sampan, Satien, Anek, Aut, Nimit and Samorn, all with differing restrictions set off on this groundbreaking endeavour.
After months of dedicated practice, the team arrived on the Gold Coast to challenge the best disabled bowlers in Australia. The events entered were the Men’s and Women’s Singles, which comprised of sectional play and then knockout rounds thereafter, and then any combination pairs, again playing in the sectional and knockout format.
In the Women’s Singles, Samorn and Nimit were unfortunate not to qualify for the knockout stage losing out on shot difference. However, in the Men’s section we fared better with Satien and Aut qualifying for the knockout stage and with Anek and Sampan marginally missing the cut.
Aut succumbed in his first knockout match but Satien bowled superbly to reach the quarter finals to set up a match against Damien Delgado, an Australian Commonwealth bowler and Australia’s Disability Bowler of the year 2021. In a very closely contested match Satien held the Aussie champ all the way until conceding 3 shots when Damien was 18-17 ahead so closing out the match 21-17. A very creditable performance against such a top quality player.
The pairs competition followed a couple of rest days with the preliminary rounds played and Mermaid Bowls Club. The pairings of Satien and Aut and Nimit and Anek struggled through the preliminary rounds and unfortunately fell short of qualifying. However, lead bowler Samorn and skip Sampan played consistently through their matches and won their section, so qualifying for the quarter finals at Helensvale Bowl Club the next day.
From the outset Samorn found her range and with Sampan playing confident shots in pressure situations they won their quarter final 12-9 in a hard fought contest.
In the semi-final the Thai pair came up against the formidable Aussie pair of Damien Delgado and Cooper Whitestyles. The game turned out to be an absolute cracker which attracted unprecedented spectator interest.
With two ends to play, the scores were tied at 10 -10 and really was anyone’s game. Both pairs played some excellent bowls but in the end the experience of the Aussie pair was enough to edge out the Thai bowlers but the local support and the praise heaped on our bowlers was testament to their bowling ability and how well they had performed.
The results on the green were secondary to the very positive experience that these bowlers were able to witness. Playing in a major international competition in very different conditions, meeting people in similar situation to themselves, making friends and lifelong memories. A fantastic achievement in itself.
Congratulations to all the players, the coaching staff, and the Thai Bowls Association for their amazing efforts both on and off the field!
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