New Zealand women’s four claim lawn bowls bronze at Commonwealth Games – صحيفة الصوت

The emotion of defeat was replaced by the emotion of success as New Zealand claimed a bronze medal in the women’s fours lawn bowls event at the Commonwealth Games.

Led by skip Val Smith, the Kiwi quartet had been in front heading into the final end of their semifinal against India, only to concede four points and lose to the eventual gold medallists.

Twenty-four hours later, they had to go again in their bronze medal match against Fiji, where they came back after falling behind 4-0 early to win 17-6 and secure New Zealand’s 25th medal of the Birmingham Games.

First-time medallists Tayla Bruce and Nicole Toomey were both in tears as they spoke to Sky Sport after their win at the Royal Leamington Spa Bowling Club.

“It’s just unreal,” said Bruce. “I’m quite overwhelmed with emotion right now to be honest.”

Toomey said she couldn’t put the feeling of winning a medal into words. “It’s my debut here, so getting a medal with these guys, it’s amazing.”

For Smith, competing in her fifth Games, the women’s fours bronze joined another she won in the same event in Glasgow in Scotland in 2014, and a silver in the women’s singles she won in Delhi in India in 2010.

Selina Goddard was also part of the bronze-medal winning four in 2014 and told Sky Sport this year’s team were “a solid unit”.

“We came to the Comm Games as friends and here we are.

“To do it together, through all the triumphs we’ve been through, through all the challenges we’ve been through, then to do this hurdle today, it’s just amazing.”

Smith turned 57 the day before these Games began. She said she had full faith in her team-mates, none of whom are older than 30.

“I’m very proud,” she told Sky Sport.

“They may be young, but I knew that they were capable.

“As has already been said, we came together here as friends and we’ve developed that over a couple of years and particularly the last 12 months.

“We knew that that was going to be one of our strengths when we were here at the Commonwealth Games.”

The women’s four had wins over Niue and Wales in sectional play as well as a draw with eventual silver medallists South Africa.

They advanced as the top team from section B and beat Botswana in their quarterfinal before losing to India, then beating Fiji.

After the eighth end in the bronze medal match, the Kiwis had a slender 7-6 lead, but they finished strong to open up an insurmountable advantage after 14 of the 15 scheduled ends.

All four team members have another event to complete, with Smith, Goddard and Toomey lining up in the women’s triples and Bruce joining Katelyn Inch – who made it to the quarterfinals of the women’s singles – in the women’s pair.

Bruce and Inch began their campaign with a win over India earlier on Tuesday, while the triple lost to India.