Corrine hoping to represent Australia

COOKTOWN lawn bowls star

Corinne Stallan has her fingers crossed for a national team selection after a strong showing amid tough competition in Sydney earlier this month.

The 17-year-old student has bounced back after a disappointing outing at her first open competition in May as she represented Queensland against NSW and Victoria.

“I was happy with how it went, but it was a really tough competition,” Corinne said.

“I played fours, triples and pairs and skipped (captained) all of them. We lost our first game of fours and pairs, won our first game of triples and our second game of pairs and lost our last game of triples.”

The three-day competition was monitored closely by selectors who will pick eight prospective players for the nationals in Perth.

“We are not sure when those teams will get announced, but it will go from the initial eight selected down to five boys and five girls,” Corinne said.

While the overall event was a thriller won by Port Doulgas golfer Troy Cox, the Cape was well represented in other grades.

Cooktown’s Brent Hetaraka was the B-grade gross and nett champion and also carded the best nett score of the event.

He beat former Weipa golfer Ian Street by five strokes to win the gross, with current Weipa golfer Jamie Hutton in third, a further two strokes away.

C-grade nett and gross was won by Heath Craft, while Weipa’s Randall O’Neill picked up third in the nett, while Campbell Venables was sixth.

Weipa’s Viv Chan was runner-up in both the nett and gross in the women’s Div 2 event, with Pris Freeman taking honours.

In the main events, gun golfer Troy Cox shot -3 on Saturday and -2 on Sunday to be -5 for the tournament and claim the trophy.

Runner-up was 17-year-old Mossman golfer Couper Smith, who was -5 on Saturday and +1 on Sunday to lose by a single stroke.

The difference was the 18th hole on the final day. Both Cox and Smith eagled the hole on Saturday, but the teenager had to settle for a bogey on Sunday, while Cox made a steady par.

The Div 1 women’s event was won by Michelle Field, who beat Ashleigh Hay.

World Cup starts Thursday

THE Matildas will begin their home FIFA Women’s World Cup campaign on Thursday night in Sydney, taking on Ireland.

Still buzzing after Far North Queensland product Mary Fowler scored the goal to give them a win against France in a friendly on Saturday night in Melbourne, the Matildas will be hot favourites against the Irish side.

The tournament officially begins several hours earlier as co-hosts New Zealand take on Norway at Eden Park in Auckland.

Unlike their trans-Tasman neighbours, the Football Ferns are not favoured to win their match.

All matches in the FIFA Women’s World Cup are on Channel 7 or their associated digital channels.

In their other group matches, the Matildas will play Nigeria on July 27 and Canada on July 31.

Weipa parkrun celebrates

7th birthday this Saturday

THE birthday cake will be rolled out at Weipa parkrun this Saturday as the local event celebrates seven years.

Apart from a forced break during the pandemic, Weipa parkrun has been staged every Saturday at 7am in all kinds of weather conditions – mostly hot.

The first parkrun was held on July 23, 2016 and 98 people took part.

Since then, there have been 1600 official finishers and 12,065 finishes.

From 322 events, there have been 1770 personal bests recorded with an average finish time of 37 minutes and 18 seconds.

Ross Dawson has run the most times, notching up 198 appearances, along with many volunteering Saturdays, while Rose Robins has put her hand up to volunteer the most times, with 81 appearances.

In total, there have been 433 people put their hand up to volunteer.

The current record for the 5km circuit is 16:46, set by Damien Messmer in 2021, while Lizzy Bagnall holds the female title with a time of 18:41 from earlier this year.

Parkrun is held across the world and anyone interested in taking part in the timed, 5km event is welcome to join at any time.

Simply turn up just before 7am near the Nanum roundabout in Weipa and register (best to do it online first and get a barcode) and join in the fun.

You can run, jog or walk.