Isle of Man bowlers Paula Garrett and Caroline Whitehead suffered an agonising defeat at the 2026 Commonwealth Games on Friday afternoon.

The Manx duo were in action on day two of the Games, having kickstarted Team Isle of Man’s involvement in Glasgow 24 hours earlier on the opening day of the bowls competition at the SEC Centre.

In their second match of the women’s pairs sectional play, the islanders went up against their Zambian opponents, Getrude Siame and Foster Banda, and it went right down to the wire.

The Isle of Man pair got off to a fast start, dominating the opening set by racing into a 6-0 lead after the first four ends and, while their opponents responded in the last end, Garrett and Whitehead won 6-3.

But it was a different story in the second set as the Zambia pair established an early 0-3 advantage in the first end and, despite the Manx duo replying, it was the African pair who took the second set 2-7 to force a decider.

And, unfortunately for Garrett and Whitehead, the one-end tie-break went in favour of Siame and Banda 0-1 to ensure Zambia edged victory by the narrowest of margins.

BUSY SATURDAY

The island’s bowlers will be back in action at the Games tomorrow (Saturday) with a busy schedule.

In the morning, Mark McGreal will go up against Royden Aperau of the Cook Islands in the men’s singles, before Garrett and Whitehead are back in women’s pairs action against Australia’s Dawn Hayman and Kelsey Cottrell.

And the Isle of Man trio will be back on the rink later in the day during the evening session.

Garrett and Whitehead will face Northern Ireland pair Chloe Wilson and Shauna O'Neill, prior to McGreal going to toe-to-toe with Australia’s Aaron Wilson who is aiming for a hat-trick of gold medals having won the men’s singles titles at both the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games.