Bowls/netball: From adversity to gold

IT WAS August 28, 1994, and the end of apartheid in the early part of the decade heralded the return of South Africa to the Victoria Commonwealth Games, in Canada, ensuring that the era of threatened boycotts was over.
At the closing ceremony on the last day of the 15th Games a revamped and burgeoning Centennial Stadium in the capital city of British Columbia was throbbing with anticipation and excitement.
Of the more than 2450 athletes from the 63 countries only the gold medallists had been invited to march in the arena. New Zealand hadn't had too many golden moments that year as Nigeria, marking their arrival to the Games with a haul of 37 medals, upstaged the favourites in the gold department.
Danyon Loader, who later went on to become a double Olympic gold medallist, couldn't make it because he had to make a mad dash with other elite swimmers to the World Championship, so chef de mission Dave Gerrard asked the only Kiwi female gold medallist from Hawke's Bay, Katie Portas, if she wanted another woman to accompany her during the march.
It wasn't an easy choice for Portas _ discus silver medallist Beatrice Faumuina or cycling bronze medallist Sarah Ulmer _ but the colour of the metal, ultimately, proved to be the culling factor.
``I chose Beatrice and I remember her saying `thank you very much' to me,' she tells SportsToday at her home in Hastings.
Australian cyclists Shane Kelly, Darryn Hill and Tim O'Shannessey had claimed the 1000m time-trial treble in a first for their country but Portas, a visually impaired lawn bowls player, was equally on top of the world.
By her own admission ``it was a blur' as the closing ceremony late that afternoon meandered toward a climax in the early hours of the morning to the sound of the partying throng and yet the finale to the ``Friendly Games' has forever etched a vivid image in her mind.
``I'll never forget that, with so many people there. There I was from tiny Takapau, waving my scarf. I wish my mum and dad were there _ they would have been so proud of me,' says Portas, who will turn 72 on Boxing Day.
Born in Takapau to farmers Alf and Hine Allen, Portas moved to Hastings in 1963 after tying the knot with railway station master Morrie Portas. His job took them to Wellington where, while raising two children, Pat and Gary, and expecting her third, Christina, her life was to become topsy turvey.
Late one afternoon, Portas rushed out to the backyard of their Hutt Valley home to bring in the washing and ``the clothes-line just wasn't there'.
``I couldn't define anything as everything appeared grey. I called out to my sons (Pat was four years old and Gary a year younger) who then helped me indoors.' She felt better once she lay down in her bed and her vision returned and by the time Morrie returned from work there was some degree of normalcy. But it didn't last. A few days later a visit to a ``self-help store' (supermarket chain) in Naenae confirmed her worst fears.
``I couldn't see the goods on the shelves and that was scary.'
Initially it was diagnosed as iritis but following off-and-on trips to Palmerston North hospital over three years it was eventually narrowed down to toxoplasmosis, a condition that caused the lining of the eyes to swell up. It was reaffirmed that she was ``going blind'.
``My right eye is totally gone and the left one has scarring on the retina,' says Portas, who registered with the Foundation for the Blind in 1965.
Her parents took newly born Christina to Takapau while Morrie took the two boys with him to Wellington. He became a pillar of strength for her over the years.
``I liked sewing and smocking so Morrie would thread the needles before going to work.'
A basketballer-cum-netballer before she married, Portas only started playing bowls when Morrie retired in 1983 and they settled a stone's throw away from the Kia Toa Bowling Club, in Hastings. Six years later she became a member of the New Zealand Visually Impaired Lawns Bowls Association.
She represented her country in a Transtasman series in 1992 and then the World Championship in Victoria, Canada, a year after when she won bronze in the singles.
``I had trained so hard and it hurt to get a bronze,' says Portas, who succumbed by one to an Australian and by two to an Englishwoman, who went on to win gold. In the build-up to the world champs, Morrie drove Portas one weekend each month for six months during winter to Taranaki to hone her skills under John Murtagh.
It was in Victoria that she and a Kiwi male visually impaired player were extended invitations to compete in the 1994 Commonwealth Games.
In the 1997 world championship in Hamilton, Portas clinched gold again before winning the New Zealand Indoor Championship singles title in Wanganui two years later.
In 1989, Portas approached the then Hastings mayor, Jim O'Connor, to establish a scented garden for the visually impaired and it was at the former Fantasyland (now Splash Planet). In 1997, mayor Jeremy Dwyer approached Portas, and, on approval, named the garden after her.
Coaching blind indoor bowls and organising teams for nationals nowadays, Portas finds it difficult to find time to play.
``Morrie was my guide all those years. Now it's my turn to look after him,' she says of her 80-year-old husband, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1997.