Namibia qualifies for Bowls World Cup 

Namibia’s men’s and women’s bowls teams both qualified for the 2027 Bowls World Cup after finishing second overall at the Africa States Bowls tournament in Lusaka, Zambia over the weekend.

Namibia won a total of four silver and three bronze medals to finish second overall behind South Africa.

In the women’s trips category, Namibia’s team of Diana Viljoen, Elzaan de Vries and Huipie van Wyk won the silver medal after finishing just behind South Africa on points aggregate, while Botswana came third.

In the women’s fours competition, Namibia’s team of Viljoen, De Vries, Van Wyk and Bianca Lewis won the silver medal, with SA winning gold and Zimbabwe bronze.

In the men’s trips competition the Namibian team of Axel Krähenbühl, Colin Peake and Schalk van Wyk won the silver medal with SA winning gold and Botswana bronze.

In the men’s fours competition the Namibian team of Krähenbühl, Peake, Van Wyk and Christo Steenkamp won the silver medal with SA winning gold and Botswana bronze.

In the women’s singles competition, Namibia’s Marietjie van der Berg won the bronze medal, with SA winning gold and Zimbabwe silver.

In the men’s singles competition, Namibia’s Waylon Wentzel won the bronze medal, with SA winning gold and Kenya silver.

In the women’s pairs competition, Namibia’s Marietjie van der Berg and Bianca Lewis won the bronze medal, with SA winning gold and Zambia silver.

Namibia have now qualified for the 2027 World Bowls Championships that will be held at Victoria Park in England in July next year. It will be their first appearance at the world championships since they competed at the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia in 2023.

Viljoen over the weekend said it was a great performance by the Namibian team.

“Namibia stood strong and performed very well, and we were in contention for the overall gold medal right up to the last game. We, however, came a close second to South Africa, who were crowned the overall champions of the African States Tournament, while they also took home gold medals in most of the disciplines,” she said.

“This was also a qualifier for next year’s world cup, and by finishing in the top two we’ve now achieved that goal . . . and now the hard work will start as we prepare for England in 2027,” she said.

Viljoen said the conditions in Lusaka were quite challenging.

“We played on two greens at the Lusaka Bowling Club, and the conditions were very challenging because they were totally different in speed.

“The one green was running at about eight seconds, which is extremely heavy, so you need to really push your ball to get to the other end.

“The other green was running a nice 12 to 13 seconds, which is more what we are used to back home in Namibia. So we were rotating from one green to the other, playing once a day on the heavy green and once on the faster green, which really demanded a lot of focus from the team and a lot of concentration to be flexible and to adapt from one to the other.

“Some games were not so close because of the bad surface and others were really fantastic on the better surface,” she said.

The post Namibia qualifies for Bowls World Cup  appeared first on The Namibian.