World record breaker Bonnell chuffed with achievement
33 hours and 12 minutes would feel like an eternity when you’re doing one thing consecutively.
Well it is exactly what Right at Home Para Jackaroo Serena Bonnell and Bowls Australia’s (BA) High Performance Manager for Para Bowls Ellen Falkner MBE did this week at Club Tweed, breaking the world record for longest singles match played.
For Bonnell, the idea was to challenge societal perceptions of citizens with disabilities, and to prove that their will and determination can rival that of anyone else.
“The concept evolved based on an idea of challenging perceptions and stereotypes, doing something that nobody would expect someone with a disability to do,” she said.
“That is to perform at such a high standard against such a high caliber player, and also demonstrate the mental toughness and endurance at the same time.
“So hopefully people who were able to witness it, whether that be in person or online, it challenged some societal perceptions and stereotypes and maybe in the future it will open some doors for people with disabilities that they’re able to do anything that they want to do when they’re provided the support that they need.”
The parameters set by Guinness are fairly strict, which the 41-year-old says actually helped keep their minds off the difficulty of staying awake and the pain they were going through from the sheer physicality of the challenge.
It became a case of the pair taking some time out every four hours to refresh, change clothes and utilise the time that they had accrued.
“So you’re allowed to have a five minute break hourly, but you can accrue that break,” Bonnell said.
“The idea behind it becoming a four hour rotation was because the markers and the umpires, support staff and witnesses got rotated out every four hours.
“By breaking it up into a four hour slot or session, we were able to maximise our mental toughness and endurance.
“We were able to take our break at that four hour limit and then come back fresh with a whole new fresh perspective and fresh faces to look at.
“Towards the end of the challenge, we were unable to reach the four hours without breaking, so we were more likely to take a five minute break every two hours.
“But we did not use much of our break time at all due to it our bodies seizing up and getting cold rather than having an opportunity to warm up and keep pushing through.”
The commitment of Falkner is not lost on Bonnell either, elaborating that the former English international entrusted her to ensure that she would not push herself to the point of injury, which could have hindered her ahead of camp at the Australian Institute of Sport next week.
“Els was pretty consistent throughout. She was extremely strong and had great stamina and she was very trusting of me,” Bonnell said.
“I was honest with her as to how my body was and she was trusting that I was not going to push it to the point of injury.
“That was a commitment that I’d made to her and I’d made to Bowls Australia, that I was one hundred per cent certain that we were going to succeed, but that I would never push it past my breaking point.
“That was a very difficult balancing act because towards the end, I had envisioned pushing it to a point of absolute exhaustion whereby I had to be carried off the green, yet I didn’t want to push it to a point of potential injury.
“So it was really hard for me to know that I’d pushed it far enough that I would hopefully get some chatter about para inclusion and a spotlight on that, while not pushing it hard enough to potentially injure myself.”
