Carla’s Awesome Foursome; Barrie wins silver
So you thought the gold medal-winning Awesome Foursome were rowers? Not any more.
Australia’s newest Awesome Foursome is Victorian Carla Krizanic and the Aussie women’s fours bowls team – which has secured Australia’s first Commonwealth Games bowls gold medal in more than 12 years at the 2018 Gold Coast Games.
Sunbury’s Krizanic, Kelsey Cottrell, Rebecca Van Asch and Natasha Scott scored a famous 18-16 victory over South Africa at Broadbeach to break Australia’s 4398 day Games gold medal drought.
The Jackaroos trailed the reigning Commonwealth champions in the early stages of the match, before powering to a six-shot lead after six ends.
South Africa fought back to take the lead nine ends in, before Australia steadied and hung on to add the Commonwealth gold medal to their 2016 world championship.
“The crowd here was absolutely amazing. I’ve never played in front of a crowd like this, it definitely helped us the whole series,” Krizanic told Bowls Australia after prevailing.
“We owe them a lot.
“I never imagined how loud the crowd would be here and I think it really helped boost us. We’ve had so many close games along the way and I think they really got us over the line so we have a lot to thank them for.
“We got a good start and they pegged back closer to us, but we’ve been in that position in a lot of games so we had faith in each other and confidence that we could get over the line when it counted.”
It is the second Commonwealth medal won by Victorians at the Gold Coast after Mulgrave Country Club’s Barrie Lester was part of the Australian men’s triples team which fought bravely to go down to Scotland in a superb gold medal match 19-14.
It gives Lester a silver medal to go with his Commonwealth Games bronze medal won in 2006 in Melbourne.