Bowls and Para Bowls have the honour of providing the first sporting action at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games as a new format injects fun and an upbeat atmosphere into the event.

An extra day of competition has been added to the schedule after “unprecedented demand” to participate.

Bowls and Para Bowls are among the fastest growing sports across the Commonwealth and will take the spotlight at the SEC Centre for one of the sport’s biggest stages.

There’ll be a great atmosphere at the SEC with spectators treated to the exciting indoor format, four games playing simultaneously and music too, making it an unforgettable occasion for fans to get involved and support their favourites.

The new format and schedule are highlighted as a “positive step” showing huge enthusiasm for the competition.

World Bowls now has 90 members up from 43 at the last Commonwealth Games, with new Commonwealth countries joining and it is expected some of the additional Commonwealth bowls countries could be included for 2030 Amdavad Commonwealth Games, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Belize, and Caribbean countries.

This year, “Day 0” has been added to the Competition Schedule on Thursday 23 July with a session at 09:30-16.25. The timings will allow athletes to take to the rink and still attend the Opening Ceremony in the evening.

In total, seven gold medals are at stake across Bowls and Para Bowls.

If you are looking at a list previous winners of gold medals, the favourites to come out on top must be the representatives of the top five countries – England, Scotland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Since the inaugural Games were staged in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1930, 111 gold medals have been awarded, of which the bowlers of England and Scotland have won 21 gold medals apiece. South Africa and Australia are tied in third place with 17. New Zealand has struck gold 13 times. That’s 89 out of 111 – a massive 80% – of the gold medals to just five countries.

England dominated in the early years. Indeed, they swept the board in 1930, winning the singles, pairs and fours, but, to be honest, few countries were in contention in those days. And it’s incredible to note that the Aussies had to wait until 1982 before they won their first gold medal, when Robbie Dobbins, Bert Sharp, Don Sherman and Keith Poole, triumphed in the men’s fours in Brisbane. It’s also interesting to see that South Africa’s 17 gold medals were achieved despite that country being in the sporting wilderness between 1958 and 1994.

Women were first included in the bowls schedule in Brisbane in 1982, when, as an ‘experiment’, they were limited to one event – the triples – and it was Zimbabwe’s Florence Kennedy, Anna Bates and Margaret Mills who came out on top. The first para events for bowls were introduced in Victoria, Canada, in 1994, when two visually impaired tournaments were held; Robert Brand winning the men’s gold for Scotland and Catherine Portas the women’s gold for New Zealand.

From those early days, when only six countries competed in 1930, bowls has come a long way.

Bowlers from 12 countries have now taken home a gold medal, while no fewer than 21 countries can claim to have won at least one medal.

HOME NATIONS

No coverage of the Commonwealth Games would be complete without an honourable mention for a couple of legendary figures who played their part in making sure that England and Scotland occupy the top two spots in the league tables. England’s David Bryant CBE won the men’s singles title four times in succession, and was part of the winning four in 1962. Astonishingly, Alex Marshall MBE has medalled in the pairs five times, striking gold three times (once with George Sneddon and twice with Paul Foster MBE) while Foster and Marshall have teamed up twice at the back end of a Scottish quartet to win the men’s fours title. They feature in the men’s pairs.

With England and Scotland sitting pretty at the top of the league tables, you may wonder what happened to Wales and Northern Ireland – where do they stand in the rankings? Both countries have won five gold medals, and stand equal sixth in the gold medal table – but Wales have won an impressive total of 31 medals, compared with Northern Ireland’s 24. This time, England and Scotland are stacked with top performers, but it will be interesting to see how the likes of Daniel Salmon and Gary Kelly perform for Wales and Northern Ireland. Salmon, remember, garnered gold in the pairs – with two different partners – in 2018 and 2022, will be hoping to make it an historic hat-trick this time with 2022 bronze triples medallist Ross Owen. Kelly lost to Aussie Aaron Wilson in the singles final in Leamington four years ago and to Ryan Bester in the world final on the Gold Coast in 2023, when he skipped Adam McKeown to the world pairs title whom he will be partnering again.

Canada might be regarded as one of the world’s top bowling countries, but, for some unknown reason, the canny Canucks, who have won ten silver and three bronze medals, are still looking for their first Commonwealth Games gold medal. With the reigning world outdoor singles champion Ryan Bester, who made his Games debut as a teenager in Manchester in 2002, at Glasgow 2026, all that could change in 2026 – his seventh Games.

INDOOR INSIGHT

As we look into our crystal balls and try to predict who will strike gold this year, this nigh-impossible task is made even harder this time around because, for the first time in 96 years, the event will be played indoors. And, for better or worse, in a brave attempt to make our sport more spectator-friendly, the powers-that-be have changed the format, so that games will be abbreviated.

World Bowls have given permission to Commonwealth Games to alter some of the Laws of the Sport to enhance the spectacle. Viewers watching from home and spectators at the event will notice jacks being placed instead of delivered, mats to be placed in a designated position, shot clocks overseeing the delivery of bowls being delivered to name a few changes. Plus, there will be a DJ pumping out music, certainly different from the traditional way bowls is played.

From reigning Commonwealth champions to emerging talents ready to make their mark, the competition features some of the biggest names in the sport from across the Commonwealth.

RACE FOR THE PODIUM

The team lists really are an A-list of bowlers at the top of their games.

The largest entry in the Men’s Singles sees 26 nations including Scotland and the home nations, the crown dependencies of Jersey, Isle of Man and Guernsey, plus Malaysia, Australia, India, Pakistan, Falkland Islands and Cook Islands.

The Women’s Singles will be fought between 25 countries including the home nations, New Zealand, Singapore, Norfolk Island and the Polynesian island of Niue.

The Men’s Pair (24 teams) and Women’s Pair (25 teams) will also play in sections before the knockout stages.

In brief, Scotland will once again carry strong hopes on home soil as mentioned earlier and the atmosphere inside the arena is expected to be electric whenever the Scottish team takes to the carpet.

Headlining a very strong team is the aforementioned eight-time Commonwealth Games athlete and seven-time medallist, Alex ‘Tattie’ Marshall MBE.

Marshall will join forces with Paul Foster MBE, who is heading to his sixth Games with six medals in hand, in the men’s pairs and they will be hoping to regain the title they last won in 2014.

Marshall will join fellow Scot Willie Wood MBE and Wales’ Robert Weale in holding the record for the bowlers with the most appearances for their countries and in a lovely family twist this Games, his niece, Beth Riva, has been selected for the women’s team at the age of 23.

She won the World Indoor Bowls Championships mixed pairs in 2025 with Jason Banks who will also make his Team Scotland debut in the men’s singles.

The women’s team meanwhile features Caroline Brown who will compete at her fifth Games having won silver alongside in the women’s triples at Gold Coast 2018 which was Scotland’s first ever Commonwealth Games medal in the event and the first medal in women’s lawn bowls since Melbourne 2006.

Team England won the most medals – seven – at the 2022 Birmingham Games and will be among the podium favourites again. With a blend of established medal winners in their ranks, including reigning triples gold medallist Sian Honnor and current World Cup men’s singles gold medal winner Sam Tolchard who have both been selected for their fifth Games. Tolchard bidding to win an elusive gold medal in the singles to add to complete the full set of pairs, triples and fours already.

Together the team has a total of 14 medals under their belts with all six members having been podium finishers previously Tolchard (one silver, three bronze), Honnor (two gold, two bronze), Amy Pharaoh (one gold, one silver, one bronze), Jamie Walker (one silver), Nick Brett (one gold, one bronze), Katherine Rednall (one bronze).

Australia’s team includes defending singles gold medallists Aaron Wilson and Ellen Fife, who will both return to the discipline in pursuit of more history.

Wilson, affectionately known as Disco, will contest his third Commonwealth Games and already sits alongside English great David Bryant as the only men to have won back-to-back Commonwealth Games singles gold medals.

Should Wilson secure a third consecutive singles title in Glasgow, he would join Bryant as the only players in history to claim three straight Commonwealth Games singles gold medals, following Bryant’s remarkable run of four consecutive titles between 1962 and 1978.

Fife etched her own name into the history books at Birmingham 2022, becoming the first player in Commonwealth Games history to win gold in both the singles and pairs at the same Games.

She also became Australia’s first bowls gold medallist on UK soil and now returns for her second Games aiming to join Bryant, Wilson, New Zealand’s Jo Edwards and Siti Zalina Ahmad as a back-to-back singles champions.

The Jackaroos squad also features current World Bowls Series No 1 ranked Corey Wedlock, plus there’s Kelsey Cottrell (Australia) who joins fellow World Bowls Hall of Famers, the aforementioned Marshall, Foster, Pharaoh and Bester competing.

The event carries platinum World Bowls Series ranking points.

We’ve mentioned Bester as the world champion, well New Zealand have the reigning women’s singles champion Tayla Bruce in their side too, plus four-times Games representative Shannon McIlroy and three times medallist Selina Goddard.

Malaysia – winners of the 2025 inaugural World Cup, India, who celebrated their first ever gold medal in bowls at Birmingham 2022, feature. New World Bowls Series female No 1 Emma Firyana  Saroji stars for Malaysia, which will host the World Bowls Series finals later this year, while two members of 2022 Indian winning fours women’s fours team Pinki Singh and Ruparani Tirkey are back but playing pairs this time.

Bowls as we know is a family sport and there’s brother and sister Chad and Millie Nathan in the Tonga side and sisters Connie and Rebecca Rixon for Malta, while Ali Forsyth has been selected for New Zealand with his partner Kelly McKerihen for Canada – and they are based in Australia!

For Jersey, Taylor Greechan is the third generation of his clan to make the Games. He makes his debut following in the footsteps of his mother Lindsay, father Thomas and grandmothers Gina Le Long and Helen Greechan.

Look out too for Emily Jim from the Cook Islands who will be in their squad alongside her mum Teokotai whose stunning traditional headdress caught everyone’s eye in Leamington.

Talking of maiden Games, former Welsh medal winner Jason Greenslade dons the Guernsey uniform for the first time, with their squad also featuring recently crowned World Bowls Indoor Championship women’s singles winner Alison Merrien MBE and her husband Ian partners Greenslade in the pairs.

More first timers at the Games include Sophie McGrouther for Scotland, Amy Williams and Lauren Gowen for Wales and Emma Boyd for Canada, Dawn Hayman and Aaron Teys for Australia – yes it’s hard to believe given their achievements of recent times.

And there’s great stories for other nations too including Falkland Islands for which five of their team are making their Commonwealth Games debut with bowls being the only sport represented who have been practising on an indoor facility with mats taped together in a school corridor, and Isle of Man who celebrate a proud milestone with four athletes selected for one Games – the most ever for the history of Manx bowls.

PARA BOWLS

Para bowls continues to grow in prominence, with Glasgow 2026 matching the largest para bowls programme ever seen at a Commonwealth Games. Three para events will be contested:

• Men’s Pairs B6-B8
• Women’s Pairs B6-B8
• Mixed Pairs B2-B3

Para bowls has become one of the Games’ great success stories since first appearing as a demonstration sport in 1994 before being officially introduced in 2002. The fully integrated format continues to showcase inclusivity, elite skill, and inspiring stories from athletes competing with physical disabilities and visual impairments.

Scotland will once again be one of the nations to watch. The hosts will be looking to defend their titles on home territory after winning gold in each Para Bowls discipline at Birmingham 2022. Joining them on the rinks will be Australia, England, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and Wales, promising a vibrant and competitive field for one of the Games’ most inclusive sports.

Para Bowls as mentioned made its debut as a demonstration sport at Victoria 1994, before officially joining the Commonwealth Games programme at Manchester 2002. Since then, it has featured at Glasgow 2014, Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022, with Glasgow 2026 matching the three-event format seen in Birmingham.

Malaysia returns to the Para Bowls line-up for the first time since Glasgow 2014, having previously won two bronze medals at Manchester 2002, whilst Singapore and Canada will make historic debuts in the Para Bowls disciplines at a Commonwealth Games.

The other six nations – Australia, England, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales – continue their 100% attendance record, having qualified once again through their respective Commonwealth Games Associations.

Pauline Wilson, B6-B8 Pairs Commonwealth champion and member of Glasgow 2026 Athlete Advisory Committee, who is representing Scotland, said: “Competing at a home Games is a dream come true. The support in Glasgow will be electric and we’re ready to give it everything to defend our titles. The Commonwealth Games has given so many of us a platform to shine and show the world how fantastic our sport can be – and Glasgow 2026 will be no exception.”

Wilson will be one of the athletes to watch alongside Australia’s Gold Coast 2018 gold medallist Jake Fehlberg who returns for his third Commonwealth Games campaign alongside 2023 World Bowls Championships winning teammate Jacky Hudson. At 75-years-old, Jacky will become one of the oldest Australian athletes across any sport to make a Games debut. Fehlberg remains the only para bowler in history to have won gold at both the Commonwealth Games and World Bowls Championships and will be aiming to further cement his legacy in Scotland.

There’s also Wales’ Julie Thomas, a silver medallist four years ago, England’s Kieran Rollings, the current World Bowls Tour para champion and bronze winner in 2022, while 2023 women’s world para pairs champions, Teri Blackbourn and Julie O’Connell, will contest the women’s B6-B8 for New Zealand. O’Connell making her debut at the age of 67.

As anticipation continues to build, Glasgow 2026 promises to showcase not only world-class bowls and para bowls, but also the personalities, rivalries, and stories that make the sport such a special part of the Commonwealth Games.

Let the Games begin!