Gold Coast 2018 - Half way through

The new week heralded the start of new competitions. Two of the disciplines were concluded on Sunday with medals awarded in the Men's Triples, and Women's Singles. Monday also provided some medal matches in the Women's Fours and Men's Pairs.

In the Women's Fours Australia claimed its first Commonwealth Games gold medal in more than 12 years, with Kelsey Cottrell, Carla Krizanic, Rebecca Van Asch and Natasha Scott triumphant over South Africa.

Australian Fours Gold Medalists

In the Men's Pairs the dominant force and defending champions Paul Foster and Alex Marshall were involved in an incredible match against Wales's Daniel Salmon and Marc Wyatt. Salmon and Wyatt were the eventual Commonwealth Champions.

Welsh Pair take Gold

Monday also saw the start of sectional play in the Women's Pairs and Men's Singles and drama unfolded with some shock results.

Andrew Newell ecstatic to beat
England's Robert Paxton 

It is the fist time that Jamaica has competed in the Commonwealth Games Lawn Bowls and in the singles they are being represented by South Londoner and Jamaican national, Andrew Newell.
Andrew has attracted a lot of interest not only in the run up to the games with TV interviews but also on the Gold Coast. It is a truly inspirational "Cool Runnings" story and he has done a great deal to enhance the sport of bowls not only in Jamaica and the Caribbean but also in the UK - it is not very often bowls features on Sky News and BBC Breakfast.
The enormity of his task was evident in his very first Commonwealth match when he unfortunately lost to current World Champion, Shannon Mcilroy 21-0. The second match was not much better and he lost to Kenya 21-2. However, he slept on the experience and then rocked up on Tuesday morning to produce a shock result beating Robert Paxton of England 21-16. He now goes into Wednesday's final sectional match with 2 wins and 2 loses.

Cook Islands win first ever medal

Also on Monday, history was made as the Cook Islands won their very first Commonwealth Medal of any colour in the Men's Pairs claiming a Bronze by beating Malta 17-11. Another inspirational story from the Lawn Bowls event.

From an officiating point of view, I have had a couple of easy rides the last couple of days with Time Keeping and Paddle Holder duties on Monday and a single Marking duty on Tuesday.
I marked for Pairs Gold Medalist, Daniel Salmon from Wales against Taiki Paniani from the Cook Islands. Daniel came out winner 21-17.

We are now building up to the culmination of the competition on Friday and our duties for the final two days are not yet decided. Tomorrow I have one umpiring duty in the evening session.