Ireland’s Copeland and Wilson from Norfolk Island crowned men’s and women’s champion of champions 2025

Ireland’s David Copeland and Shae Wilson from Norfolk Island are the men’s and women’s champion of champions for 2025.

In the women’s flagship match, Shae Wilson was a 9-3, 8-4 winner over Debra White from New Zealand, who picked up her second silver medal in this competition.

The Bronze went to England’s Izzie White, joint youngest competitor in the event at the age of 23, and Ireland’s Shauna O’Neill, the 2023 winner of the World Bowls Junior Indoor Championship singles and mixed pairs and current British Bowls women’s gold medallist.

In the men’s showpiece, David Copeland beat Fiji’s Rajnesh Prasad 7-2, 6-4.

Bronze medallists were pre-tournament favourite, 2014 winner Iain McLean from Scotland, World Bowls Series’ No 7, and Canada’s Owen Kirby.

O’Neill and McLean have already booked their place in next year’s event, winning their national singles titles back-to-back.

Back to this year’s competition, and three Oceania member nations contested the finals: New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Fiji, while the fourth nation was also an island, Ireland, which had the bragging rights for being the only country to clinch two medals.

Fifty-seven players, 26 men and 31 women representing 33 nations around the globe, travelled to Australia, with their sights set on winning the ultimate prize in bowls.

The format, two sets of seven ends, with a three-end tiebreak if needed, was played out on two nine-rink synthetic carpet greens running at between 12 and 14 seconds at the Riverdome complex on the banks of the River Murray.

26-year-old Shae Wilson, a member of Norfolk Island Bowling Club, has been playing bowls since 2014, incidentally, the same year Scotland’s Iain McLean, a bronze medallist in this event this year, was the champion.