Farrell earns place in elite
Lawn bowler dominated like no one before or since
QUEENSLAND is a passionate state that bleeds maroon and proudly punches well above our weight in international sporting achievement, producing some of the greatest international sportsmen and sportswomen in history.
The Townsville Bulletin has compiled the definitive and provocative list ranking Queensland’s greatest 100 athletes – including those born and raised in the state as well as imports whose magnificent careers were synonymous with Queensland.
Today we reveal numbers 100- 81 with the countdown continuing in the Sunday Mail tomorrow and the Bulletin on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Our 100 Greatest will ignite debate around who really is that No. 1 maroon sporting legend of all time and how the achievements of our champions compare across a diverse range of sports.
It is also a celebration of the remarkable achievements of Queenslanders.
A panel of experts spent weeks researching and deliberating on the make- up of the final list. They wrestled hard choosing every one of the 100 and their battles over those who finished just outside the list – from 101 to 105 were epic.
Some legendary Maroon sports stars were relegated to the bench.
The top 100 is sure to spark controversy with sports fans as we roll out our winners over the next few days. Townsville’s own Renita Farrell has made the list and is included in today’s countdown, ranking at number 95.
Farrell won two gold medals playing for the Hockeyroos at the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, and also won gold at the 1994 World Cup during her debut international season.
Farrell co- captained the Hockeyroos to gold in Atlanta and became one of the core members of a Hockeyroos team that dominated the world throughout the late ’ 90s.
She is one of the few Australian women to have won dual Olympic gold medals and was inducted into the Queensland Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.
The judges selecting Queensland’s greatest were award- winning journalist, author and member of the Australian Boxing Hall of Fame Grantlee Kieza, the doyen of Queensland sports writing and broadcasting Robert Craddock, QSport chief executive Peter Cummiskey, three- time Olympic gold medallist Tracy Stockwell, and trailblazing sports journalist Margie McDonald.
HOW did a 74- year- old lawn bowler leap above Brisbane Lions man- mountain Jonathan Brown, race past ironman great Shannon Eckstein and roar over the top of Queensland’s King of the Mountain, Craig Lowndes?
Rob Parrella, who won gold, silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games as one of the world’s best lawn bowlers, scored one of the biggest upset wins of his career when he finished No. 81 on our list of Queensland’s top 100 sports stars, ahead of many celebrated and highprofile Queensland heroes.
Also in Parrella’s wake were 1991 British Open golf champion Ian Baker- Finch, Lions superboot Jason Akermanis, Broncos great Petero Civoniceva and Socceroo Frank Farina.
The judges felt Parrella had dominated his sport like no other Australian lawn bowler and that he had proved himself as one of the best in the world over many years.
As tough as Lions great Brown might have been, Parrella showed enormous heart throughout his career, too, in a sport with huge popularity and participation rates.
Parrella learnt to play bocce on the back streets of Naples but it was after he moved to Brisbane, aged 10, that he first played lawn bowls.
He became the first Australian bowler to win an individual Commonwealth Games gold medal – at Auckland in 1990 – and followed it up with bronze at the 1994 Games in Canada. A long- term arch rival of England’s David Bryant, Parella lists his greatest thrill in the game as beating the threetime world champion to reach the finals in Auckland. A silver medal at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games was Parrella’s launchpad to international bowls acclaim, but he fell out of favour with Australian selectors and had to call on all his reserves of determination to make it back into the national team seven years later.
Brown won three premierships with the Lions and Lowndes became the king of the Mount Panorama track at Bathurst with seven victories across 22 years. But our judges believed Parrella, in his own unique way, was rolled gold and had dominated his sport in Australia like no one before or since.