Rose Ogier completed a magnificent golden double yesterday, topping the podium in the women’s singles competition and then joined forces with Julie Williams in the women’s pairs to repeat the feat.
But had she arrived in Orkney with the aim of being crowned queen of the Kirkwall Bowling Club?
‘Absolutely not. No, no. I had absolutely no vision of that whatsoever,’ Ogier said.
‘And all the games were tough. There are no shady competitors here. Everyone deserves their place.’
Hear from Rose Ogier and Julie Williams on our Games Today podcast
For two days of competition Ogier was perfect in the singles, with four wins from four in the round-robin format.
But her final contest yesterday morning was against the one player who could still catch her in Orkney’s Isla Rendall and the game did not go to script, as Ogier explained.
‘I thought I’d blown it,’ she said.
‘I didn’t have a very good first set – I fluffed that. I struggled a lot with the weight. I was really pleased that we’d had a drop of rain, because it made things a little bit slower, and thought that would have suited me, but no, I was all over the place with weights and so lost the first set.
‘I drew the second set, [which] wasn’t enough to win that game. However, it was enough with the shot difference from my previous games to still get the gold, which is brilliant.’
In contrast, the gold in the women’s pairs came after Ogier and Williams lost their opener, but once they started to build momentum there was no stopping them as four wins on the trot saw them come out on top.
‘I had a not very good first game for us and we lost by one point to Orkney,’ said Ogier.
‘I really did want to win that one, to make our mark on the competition. Julie kept us in the game as she has done time and time again.
‘But yeah, it’s a team game. We did it together.’
Echoing Ogier’s expectations from the singles, Williams admitted that winning a medal of any colour had not even been on her agenda in her first ever tournament away from Guernsey.
‘I was hoping to win one game. I didn’t expect to win any more than that, and I’d have been pleased to have just won one game,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe it, I really cannot believe it. It’ll sink in tomorrow.
‘They’ll let us back in Guernsey now won’t they?’
Williams has already turned her attention to the mixed pairs whereas Ogier can enjoyed a well earned rest as she has finished her programme.
However, she is keen to offer her support to the rest of the team for the remainder of the week.
‘The team that we’ve got here for this trip is a really good, close knit team,’ Ogier said.
‘I would say the camaraderie is great. We’re all pulling together. We’re all supporting each other and we’re here to support the boys in their next event – they started on the triples today. So we’ll be here to give them a bit of a boost.’
In the men’s singles, Steve Williams finished fifth with two wins from his six games while the Guernsey men’s pair of Chris Dyer and John Rihoy also finished fifth, with a win and two draws from six games.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.