Rose Rixon (Malta): I’m so proud to play alongside my daughters
Four years ago, Rose Rixon teamed up with daughters Connie and Rebecca to secure Malta’s first ever Commonwealth Games medal in lawn bowls, winning a bronze medal in the women’s fours.
The Rixon trio are all returning to Commonwealth Games action this year, and will be joined by Irene Attard in the women’s fours, who is making her Games debut. Sisters Connie and Rebecca will be teaming up in the women’s pairs.
We caught up with Rose as she looks ahead to representing the Island Nation at Birmingham 2022.
Of course when I speak, I can only speak for myself when I say I was pretty excited to make the team again. Especially as we never know how many team members we as a sport will get allocated by Maltese Olympic Committee.
In the 2018 Commonwealth Games we were only allocated six players and two officials. It was a hard task for the Maltese selectors to go with four relatively unknown women, in a competition that they had never entered before. This year we were allocated eight players and two officials, so we are getting close to a full team.
The lead up has been difficult to say the least. We were in a pretty good position after the Games four years ago. We headed off in 2019 with a full contingent to the Atlantic Championships in Wales to qualify for the World Championships. It was the first time entered and we managed to qualify in all but
one discipline.
Then COVID-19 hit and halted play for two years, postponing the World Bowls Championships, so our preparation has not been as we would have planned. Training is going well but playing in international competitions has been lacking. And in bowls it’s very important to have at least couple of international
games under your belt before playing in a Commonwealth Games.
As a Mum of two very talented and highly decorated bowlers I’m so proud to be chosen alongside them to play at this level.
Connie and Bec are both individually very good bowlers, competing in many local and
international competitions and are extremely well respected among their teammates and many international bowlers. Not only are they very experienced for their young ages but are also fabulous tacticians.
I’m confident together with our lead Irene Attard, we will be doing our utmost to make a podium appearance again.
No doubt this will be a hard task going to Birmingham and playing at Royal Leamington Spa, but what an honour and a privilege it will be to represent our Island Nation once again in a sport we love playing together in.
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