A SOUTH Ayrshire sporting hero is taking on an important role in next year's Commonwealth Games.

Rhona Howie, formerly Martin, the Team GB Curling gold medallist at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic will be bowling team manager at next year's Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia.

And the team is likely to include Troon's Commonwealth Games gold medallist Paul Foster, who recently won his fifth World Indoor Bowling title in Norfolk and his partner Alex "Tattie"Marshall. The duo won gold in the pairs event at the 2014 Games in Glasgow.

Millions watched as Rhona, then Rhona Martin launched what became known as the ‘Stone of Destiny’ to win gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and she is set to bring that high performance expertise to the Lawn Bowls team in Gold Coast. Following her career as an athlete, Rhona amassed a wealth of team management experience at multi-sport events before joining Bowls Scotland as High Performance Manager in May 2015. She has worked extensively with the players who will represent Team Scotland and will make sure that they and the coaching team can focus on performance, as they look to build on a hugely successful home Games back in 2014.

“I am honoured to have been nominated as Team Manager for Lawn Bowls for the upcoming 2018 Commonwealth Games,” she said.

Jamie Bowie is in charge of gymnastics, while Karen McElveen takes the lead in netball and Julie Mollison heads up athletics and Paul Bell is in charge of squash.

“Working with Lawn Bowls has been an exciting new challenge for me and within the recently named High Performance squad we have a strong mix of seasoned top level performers and up and coming prospects with great potential. I am looking forward to working closely with Commonwealth Games Scotland, Scottish Disability Sport and the performance support team to ensure we can give the athletes the best opportunities to perform in the Gold Coast.”

Jon Doig OBE, Team Scotland Chef de Mission for Gold Coast 2018 said: “The sport team managers play a vital role within both their sport and the wider team to create the best possible environment at the Games for athletes to excel. I’m delighted to have all five of these talented managers on board, as we come together as one Team Scotland with the aim of having our most successful overseas Games ever in Gold Coast.”

With the previous appointment of Lindsay Lewis as Aquatics team manager announced in December 2016, six sports now have their team manager in place.

The other 12 sports on the Gold Coast 2018 programme will appoint their team managers over the next few months.