MICHAEL Kennedy already has swags of gold, silver and bronze medals from ten pin bowling and lawn bowls and after recently competing at the World Transplant Games in Durbin, South Africa, has another gold medal to add to his tally.
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Michael was diagnosed as a young fellow with Cystic Fibrosis and had a double lung transplant 19 years ago.
He hasn’t let that slow him down though, and like most people who go through transplant operations they have a better attitude to life never letting anything get them down.
Michael plays lawn bowls and ten pin bowling as his chosen sports.
He has won many medals for these two events with the latest, a gold medal for pair’s lawn bowls. His partner for the event was Bernie McNamara from Western Australia who went on to receive a silver medal in the single lawn bowls event with Michael coming fourth in the singles event.
Australia sent 36 competitors to the games in Durbin and brought home 26 gold medals coming fifth overall and breaking four world records in athletics.
Not a bad result considering the team that won had 140 athletes who’d entered.
Michael practices lawn bowls in Crookwell and ten pin bowling in Belconnen where he has a practice partner who has also had a double lung transplant.
“The best part of being a competitor in the Transplant Games is the amount of friends you make when you travel and compete all over the world,” said Michael.
Michael has now competed in six world games; Sydney, Kobe in Japan, Bangkok in Thailand, the Gold Coast, Gothenburg in Sweden and recently at Durbin in South Africa.
He has also competed in seven national games; Ballarat, Wollongong, Adelaide, New Castle, Perth, Canberra and the Gold Coast.
The next national games are in Melbourne and the next world games are in Argentina in 2015 which Michael hopes to again compete at both.
For the past 10 years Michael has been a member of the NSW Transplant committee with the past three years being in the role of Chairman.
He organises many fundraising events to help raise funds for the athletes to travel to the games as well as raising much needed funds for transplant patients.
The athletes travel and accommodation is all self-funded and that is a big contributing factor to the drop off of entries these days.
He works at Burra’s Service Centre three days a week and has a busy representative life organising training and weekend development for members plus raising awareness for Transplant Australia.
“It’s not the medals that attracts me to the competition anymore – it’s the friendship that I enjoy.” – Michael Kennedy.
