Lawn Bowls: Will Kenya get unorthodox medal in Birmingham?

• Kenya will be represented by a team of four
• The Sport is over 70-years old in the world
• Kenya has never got past the first round in the Commonwealth Games

Kenya is used to ruling track all over the world, with the country’s athletes winning medals after medals in global events. At the Commonwealth Games, most of Team Kenya’s athletes usually emanate from athletics.

At the 2018 showpiece in Gold Coast, Australia, the only non-athletics medal was from boxer Christine Ongare.

This year, the Lawn Bowls team is looking to clinch Kenya what would be termed as an unorthodox medal at the Club Games.

The team of four was picked out after a rigorous trial period that started with an initial number of 30 athletes picked up. They started residential training on June 15 and have been working for the past one month, seeking to improve their craft.

“We are going to Birmingham to try and qualify for the knockout stages. We have been competing in Commonwealth since 1998, and we are yet to make the knockout stages. We got very close on the African stage,” said the Team Manager Musembi Mumo.

International rankings has not been done for the last two years because of the COVID 19 pandemic.

With no international competitions, the organisers of the Commonwealth games are using old data from the last commonwealth game four years ago to seed teams. This will change in the next two years because there will be International Events both Africa state tournament and the world Bowls Championships.

What is Lawn Bowls?

Kenyan lawn bower Eunice Mbugua

Lawn bowls is played on grass pitch which is about 40 metres by 40 metres. each grass pitch is called green is divided into sections which are just like 7 playing sections.

Each team has four playing woods (balls) which they hold and play with. Each team tries to get as close as possible to a white ball which is called the Jack, and that’s how you score.

And the Jack is then placed about 23 metres from where you are and then you roll the ball towards it, and at the end of the four balls, the count is done to see who is closer. The closest gets a point.

For each wood that is closer than any of the opponent’s wood, a point is scored. The maximum a player can get is four points, the minimum is one point.

They are added up on a scoreboard and the players go up and down 18 times and at the end of 18 times the person with more points wins the game.

Only Seven facilities in the country 

Kenyan bowler Eunice Mbugua

While the sport is over 70 years old worldwide, there are only seven facilities in the country with over 100 bowlers playing competitively.

“It’s like any other sport like hockey or golf. you have your own sets depending on your size so a different size person gets a different sets so the sizes range from the smallest which is size zero, and the largest which is size four. depending on your hand size because the ball is measured with your hand size, guys with big hands use size four, guys with small hands use size zero,” Musembi added.