Bowls Canada Boulingrin – Canada’s Ryan Bester (Hanover, ON) will be playing in the men’s singles gold medal match at the 2016 World Bowls Championships. Bester won his section with a record of 7-2 which gave him an automatic berth to the semi-finals. His opponent, Darren Burnett, defeated Fairus ABD Jabal of Malaysia in the quarter-finals (21-13).  

If Bester and Burnett were experiencing déjà vu, they could be excused, as these two athletes faced off in the 2014 Commonwealth Games men’s singles finals in Glasgow Scotland, where Burnett maximized his home turf advantage to win the Commonwealth Champion title 21-9.  Bester has been looking forward to a rematch ever since. 

In this semi-final showdown, Burnett established an early dominance running the score to 11-18 in short order.  Bester, however, was determined to prevent history from repeating itself and clawed his way back in the game with six unanswered points over four ends to bring the score to 17-18. The men then traded single shots back and forth to bring the score to 19-20 in Burnett’s favour.

In what would become the final end, Bester was lying one in the head before Burnett drove the jack out of bounds to have it respotted on the two metre mark. With the jack at the “T”, Bester was lying two when Burnett’s last bowl came up short, giving Bester the spectacular comeback victory over Burnett. With this 21-20 win, Bester will now face hometown favourite and 2012 World Bowls bronze medallist, Shannon McIlroy of New Zealand in the gold medal match. 

McIlroy also advanced directly to the semi-finals with a first place finish in his section.  McIlroy’s semi-final victory (21-17) over Australia’s Aron Sherriff secured his place in the gold match.  This must have been a doubly sweet victory for McIlroy who lost to Sherriff in the 2014 Commonwealth Games bronze medal match.  

The finals will be lived streamed by World Bowls with the game starting at 7:00pm EST on Saturday December 10^th.  Watch the action live:  https://livestream.com/i-filmsport/WorldBowlsChamps2016

For more information on World Bowls Championships please visit: http://www.worldbowls2016.com/Category?Action=View&Category_id=89

 

For the full Bowls Canada Media Guide please visit:  http://www.bowlscanada.com/downloads/2016%20worlds/Media%20Kit%20WB-EN.pdf

 

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For more information, please contact:
Katie Gardner, Communications and Promotions Manager
kgardner@bowlscanada.com  

 About Bowls Canada Boulingrin
Bowls Canada Boulingrin (BCB) is the governing body responsible for lawn bowls in Canada.  The BCB mission is to advance the sport of bowls in Canada.  For more details on Bowls Canada Boulingrin and the sport of lawn bowls, visit www.bowlscanada.com.