Reynolds continues to thrive as World Bowls Championships looms
Right at Home Para Jackaroo James Reynolds is elated to be on his way to the Gold Coast for the World Bowls Championships later this year following his selection to the squad.
The ACT native will team up with Damien Delgado in the para men’s pairs discipline as he looks to add to his illustrious CV that already includes a Commonwealth Games bronze medal at Manchester in 2002.
Reynolds told Bowls Australia’s (BA) official podcast ‘The Right Line’ that he holds a sense of relief with his selection due to the sacrifices he has made to ensure his ticket to Coolangatta Airport.
“It has [sunk in] a bit now, a bit early on it was quite surreal but it’s something I planned for and have been working towards for some time,” Reynolds said.
“Now that we’ve played the lead-up events, planned the camps and worked out how things will work logistically and what have you, it certainly has sunk in more now.
“It was absolute relief, I’ve said to many people that this is probably the first selection process where I had no idea of whether I felt confident that I would get picked or not.
“I put a lot into this one, I really wanted to get picked for obvious reasons, but I put in a lot of effort and made sacrifices to try and give myself the best chance.”
Retiring from high performance bowls in 2018, the man affectionately known as Jimmy lists various reasons as to why he re-emerged within the national setup.
The major catalysts being new heights for the high performance setup, as well as the eye-opening pandemic that rocked the world for two years.
“I think COVID-19 was a big part of it, when you see things getting taken away from you that you take for granted, it makes you realise that you’re not a kid anymore,” he said.
“I’m in my early forties and the opportunities may not always be there to potentially reach those goals that you want to in life.
“There was that, and there was also a lot of really good feedback about the high performance setup and how it was looking, which is quite exciting.
“The extra opportunities for para athletes has increased over the years as well and I did not want to miss out on that, so I thought I would come out and have a crack, which to be honest has been allowed because of the sacrifices that myself and my wife have made, she’s been so supportive.”
When speaking of his wife, Nicole, Reynolds’ emotions are on show as he discusses how wonderful she has been for his career as well as the support and energy that she feeds him while watching rinkside.
“It’s hard not to get emotional,” He said.
“The other day I was talking to a player and they said that they hadn’t met her yet but have heard that she’s my biggest supporter on the green and she certainly is very loud in her support.
“I’m very blessed to have Nicole, and I’m away a lot for coaching and that’s not the easiest thing for any couple but the way that she takes that challenge out of the relationship is awesome.
“From a bowls perspective she is very loud and she won’t cop any negative comments towards me and she’s a massive support to me and I very much appreciate it.”
The 42-year-old was born with scoliosis, the curvature of the spine, which negatively impacted his ability to participate in sports growing up, until he was introduced to bowls just prior to middle school.
“I was born with multiple physical disabilities, the main one being severe scoliosis and basically in a nutshell there are physical deformities,” Reynolds said.
“Basically from about the age of five to ten I was having two to three surgeries a year to try and treat the scoliosis, and those never worked out too well for me, in fact they never worked.
“When I was about ten, after all of the issues they fused my spine, which essentially stops the growth of the torso but it allowed me to get on with life.
“I picked up five or six sports straight away, and one of the rugby coaches was also a school teacher and he could see how determined I was to play sport, so year six came around and there was a choice to play golf, tennis or bowls.
“I wanted to play golf with my mates but he said I was to play bowls, so I was quite cranky but I went begrudgingly.
“After that first session I found the carpet bowls that my great grandfather had given me and I was out bowling on the front lawn that afternoon. I was hooked straight away.”
