Big roll-up faces rain
RAIN looms as the only dampener to today’s start of the World Youth Championships at Broadbeach Bowls Club.
A top-class field of 35 players from 17 countries will compete for honours at the week-long event for bowlers aged 18 to 25 across singles and mixed pairs.
It’s due to be held at the venue for the Commonwealth Games, instilling confidence in officials that the competition won’t be too disrupted despite the threat of more rain hitting.
“Unless the green becomes dangerous they will play – until surface water is there but Broadbeach drains really well,” event official David Allen said.
“Last year this same week we had a cyclone and they only missed half a day.
“Plus there is plenty of make-up time. It’s highly unlikely we will lose much time.”
Allen said the unlikely Plan B would be shifting the championships to closed-in venues like Pine Rivers or Tweed Heads, as was the case for half a day last year.
“It would have to be terrible (weather for that to happen); people come from all over the world to play in this,” he said.
“But where there is a will there is a way.
“At the end of the day adapting to the conditions is what makes a champion.”
This is the third incarnation of the only under-age competition conducted by World Bowls, the sport’s global governing body.
Goulburn superstar Ellen Ryan, fresh from her second world Australian Open singles
triumph at Broadbeach last July, returns to the Gold Coast seeking another youth title to match her 2016 triumph.