Canberra ten-pin bowling power couple Amy Shoesmith and Kyle Annetts
Meet Amy Shoesmith and Kyle Annetts, Canberra's ten-pin bowling power couple.
The sport brought them together and they will both compete for Australia later this year. But before they represent their country, they'll set their sights on ACT championship success on Saturday.
Shoesmith, 18, grew up in Canberra and is just the latest in a long line of ten-pin bowlers in her family. She says getting into bowling was a matter of when, not if.
"Bowling's been in the family for quite a while now," Shoesmith said. "Mum and dad have bowled their whole lives, and grandma and grandpa used to do it all the time. So I basically started as soon as I could pick up a bowling ball."
Annetts, 19, grew up in Queensland, where his upbringing was dominated by rugby and broken bones. When he was eight or nine, repeated injuries resulted in his mum pushing him towards ten-pin bowling.
After some brief resistance, he quickly began enjoying the sport and began playing competitively when he was 15.
"That's when I started to travel to Sydney and Melbourne, and when I met Amy," Annetts said.
Annetts moved from Queensland to Canberra three weeks ago to be closer to Shoesmith and to pursue a bowling career he never saw coming.
While the two don't face one another in the gender-separated tournaments, they are competitive when they train.
Both will be bowling in this weekend's ACT championships, where they will compete with other Canberrans for a chance to represent the capital at the national championships later this year.
The tournament will be at Zone Bowling in Belconnen, with singles, doubles and trios divisions. The best performing bowlers will qualify for the Masters and Cup events on Sunday, which act as finals.
Annetts said his history of winning tournaments has given him confidence for the tournament.
"In 2017, I ended up winning four tournaments," he said. "In 2018 I won one or two but always placed in the top three. So I've had some success of winning and I'm feeling pretty confident."
After this weekend's tournament, both Annetts and Shoesmith have international tournaments to look forward to.
Shoesmith has been selected to represent Australia at the inaugural world ten-pin bowling championships in Paris. "I'm pretty keen, we leave 14th of March so very shortly. There's going to be a fair few countries there."
Annetts will also bowl for Australia at the Asian youth championships in Kuching, Malaysia.