Update from World Bowls and International Bowls for the Disabled

It was 29 years ago from 16th to the 25th August 1996 when eleven countries participated in the Paralympic Lawn Bowls Competition at the Atlanta Paralympics.

64 players competed across 8 events for the 24 medals available with Great Britain topping the medal table with 6 Golds, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze medals. 11 of the 24 medals were secured by Great Britain as the teams from Europe, Oceania, Americas, Africa and Asia battled it out to be one of the 7 countries medalling at what later transpired to be the last Paralympic Lawn Bowls competition held in nearly 30 years.

Following the 1996 Paralympic Games stricter qualifying criteria introduced by the IPC led to a change in status for Lawn Bowls resulting in its subsequent deselection from the Paralympic Games Programme.

In 2005 International Bowls for the Disabled was established by the member nations of IPC Bowls to create a new Independent Federation to allow greater control over the future of bowls within the Paralympic Movement and Lawn Bowls lost its recognised sport status.

Following years of hard work by World Bowls and International Bowls for the Disabled, the World Governing Body for Bowls for the Disabled , the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) confirmed on the 22nd July that Lawn Bowls had received Recognised International Federation (RIF) status which was conditionally awarded to World Bowls subject to completing the current merger process with International Bowls for the Disabled by the end of 2025.

IBD are currently engaging and consulting with their Member Organisations on the potential merger ahead of a Special General Meeting which will take place in late September 2025 to vote on the proposal.

There is now real hope and drive towards preparing an application for the consideration for Lawn Bowls in the 2032 Brisbane Paralympic Games aligned to the World Bowls push for the inclusion of the mainstream game in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics although Olympic Membership remains elusive at this stage. This campaign was recently launched by World Bowls and Bowls Australia as part of their “Bowls for Brisbane” campaign.

It is an exciting time for the team at IBD working closely with World Bowls towards the potential participation of our Para Bowls Athletes from across the world in another Paralympics Games. What a phenomenal achievement and huge recognition by the IPC of the significant progress Para Lawn Bowls has made in the last 20 years since the X Games in 1996.

In a joint media statement, the President of International Bowls for the Disabled (IBD) Owen James and the World Bowls President Brett O’Riley, acknowledged the significance of the IPC decision while also recognising the work to be done in the next few months towards finalising the merger of their two organisations.

Owen James said: “This decision by IPC recognises the strong strategic direction that the IBD and World Bowls have been going on for the past 24 months, as we look to work more closely to grow the number of physical, vision and intellectual impaired players around the world. A potential merger with World Bowls will enable this growth, taking advantage of their investment in a number of initiatives including the World Bowls Academy and their regional development programme”.

“From recent joint activity we have undertaken together in West Africa in Ghana, we can see huge potential to bring more physical, vision and intellectual impaired people into our sport. This includes young boys and girls not able to take part in other sports being able to enjoy the mental and physical benefits of bowls.”

Owen also said the Ghana Armed Forces are looking to use bowls as a development sport for their enlisted personnel, including for physical rehabilitation.

“The soon to be launched World Bowls Academy will enable us to train Classifiers and Coaches for these players, a current bottleneck to expanding the disabled playing ranks”, noted Owen.

Brett O’Riley said the IPC’s decision was an important step towards bowls being considered for Paralympic Games inclusion as only International Federations and Recognised International Federations are permitted to apply to be part of the Paralympic Games sport programme.

“Para bowls last featured at the Atlanta 1996 Paralympic Games and we now have many more World Bowls and IBD countries and para players, with the potential to substantially grow both in the next few years. Much of that growth will come in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This is through our development programme, using “short mat bowls” as the entry level to our game, working alongside the World Short Mat Bowls Council and manufacturers”.

With Para Bowls confirmed as one of the 10 sports on the programme for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and a potential merger of the two World Governing organisations times are looking very exciting for Para Bowls athletes at Grassroots, National and High Performance level in the coming years.

The 1996 Atlanta Paralympics Lawn Bowls participating Countries;

– Australia

– Canada

– Great Britain

– Hong Kong

– Ireland

– Israel

– Kenya

– New Zealand

– South Africa

– South Korea

– United States

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