HKLBA Aims to Prepare Right Squad for World Bowls 2024

Lawn Bowls—HKLBA Annual General Meeting

The newly appointed officers of the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association for the year of 2018 to 2019. (Stephanie Worth)

HONG KONG—The management team of the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association remained unchanged for the second year in a row when all the officers were re-elected at the Annual General Meeting on Monday, Sept 10.

The only position being challenged was the Vice President – International however the application was withdrawn before the commencement of the AGM.

President Vincent Cheung will serve his 20th term to lead the association and his top priorities this year will be the formulation of a longer-term strategy to get the Hong Kong squad ready for the 2024 World Bowls Championship, an event scheduled to hold in Hong Kong.

“After World Bowls awarded us the hosting right of the event last year we have held initial discussions within the team to see how we can build a stronger team for it,” said Cheung.

According to the plan tabled by the current VP-International, the High Performance Panel has proposed to suspend the current points based system to allow the selectors to identify those bowlers who are both talented enough and committed enough to play for Hong Kong in the next few years leading up to the World Championships.

Once a pool of eligible players were identified, the selection process will start.  This will involve the monitoring of their performance in domestic league and competition, trials and most importantly attitude assessment. Those qualified will form the backbone of the squad in the next few years.

During the same period, HKLBA will also revamp the coaching set-up for the Hong Kong team. With the newly approved funding, they will look to employ overseas coaching experts to further strengthen the squad.

The other focus of the year will be to continue pushing forward the Bowls Academy Program for the education sector, which aims at increasing the bowls population from the younger generation and expanding the base for selection of Hong Kong squad.

“2014 World Championship will be a main task for us in the next few years.  With the correct foundations laid, full support from our bowlers, member clubs and the government, we are looking for a gradual improvement on our performance standard so that we can achieve positive results at the event, ”concluded Cheung”.

This week in Lawn Bowls

The Premier League will continue this Saturday (Sept 15) at 2:30pm at all greens in Hong Kong.

Officers at the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association

President                                                                        Mr. Vincent CHEUNG

Vice President – Development                                  Mr. Heron LAU

Vice President – National League                             Mr. Cyril LEUNG

Vice President – National Championships             Mr. Warren KWOK

Vice President – International                                  Mr. Glyn DAVIES

Vice President – Technical                                         Mr. Claudius LAM

Hon. Secretary                                                              Ms. Sandy SIT

Assistant Hon. Secretary                                             Mr. David TSE

Hon. Treasurer                                                              Mr. Mike WORTH

Claudius Lam is an officer of the Hong Kong Lawn Bowls Association.