Not even a nightmare journey home could puncture Jason Banks’ mood after his historic success at the World Indoor Bowls Championship.
Inverurie’s Banks became the first person to win the open singles, pairs and mixed pairs titles at the World Championship in Hopton-on-Sea last week.
In recent days things have been back to normal for the 28-year-old.
However, his drive back to the north-east following Sunday’s singles victory wasn’t without incident.
Memorable journey home
As he looked back on the last couple of weeks, Banks told the P&J: “I enjoyed Sunday night and I didn’t head up the road until after lunch on Monday. I had various things to sort out on Monday morning before I could get on the road.
“On the way back up, I was near Scotch Corner and I hit something on the road and got a puncture.
“Then I pulled into the hard shoulder and I stopped just in front of some horse poo, and when I got out to look at what had happened to the tyre, I didn’t see it because it was dark and stood in it.
“I had a space-saver tyre, but it was a bit of a job to get to it because my trophies were in the boot, so they were sitting on the verge at the side of the hard shoulder for a while.
“It’s not really where you want them to be sitting – but I tried to get them as far away from the road as possible.
“I ended up getting a mechanic to come with a new tyre and replace the punctured one.
“It wasn’t ideal, but it was a case of being back to normal with that happening.
“I booked in to a hotel after that and then headed up the road on Tuesday.
“But I’m glad the bad luck arrived on Monday, rather than Sunday!”
Pleasant surprise on return to work
After eventually making it home, Banks returned to his job as a product design engineer with Westhill-based firm Power Jacks on Wednesday.
With the World Championship being a 17-day event, Banks had to use up a lot his annual leave just to play in the tournament.
However, on his first day back at work, he received a couple of nice surprises from his employer.
He added: “On the clock-in board with everyone’s names they had world champion on it next to my name, which was good.
“I think I spent more time talking about bowls on Wednesday than I did working because a lot of folk were asking about it.
“Most of my annual leave for the year has been used up in January – but when I went back to work on Wednesday, they said they’re going to give me half of my holidays back, which is really good of them.
“My work have always been really good at allowing me to have time off for bowls and I really appreciate the support they’ve given me.”
Arena gets new name
There was another nice surprise for Banks yesterday when he returned to his club, the Garioch Indoor Bowling Centre in Inverurie, where they have renamed the indoor bowls stadium the Jason Banks Arena in honour of his achievements at the World Championship.
A passion for bowls runs in the Banks family, with Jason’s parents Colin and Angela, uncle Ian, sister Carla and grandparents Bruce and Phyllis Middleton all playing.
Ordinarily some of his relatives would have been in attendance at the tournament, but Jason – who began playing bowls aged 10 – said: “Normally my dad would always come down and my mum has come down before as well.
“They usually come and watch and offer advice.
“But this year I said I was happy to go down by myself and they just left me to it.
“They were texting me a fair bit, but I was reading the messages and not really replying much other than saying thank you.
“I was just focused on what I was doing and they weren’t getting much of a response from me.
“I’ve been joking with a few folk that my family might be banned from coming down to the tournament next year!”
Less leads to more for champion
Banks, who also won the Scottish Open in November, has been a regular competitor at the World Championship in recent times.
But after buying a house in August, he revealed his preparation for this year’s event differed from in the past.
“This season is the least I’ve played for a long time,” he said.
“I’ve only been playing once or twice a week, but when it’s come to the World Bowls competitions, I’ve managed to focus and do well without having played as much.
“I’ve spent a lot of time doing up the house and I’ll be getting back into that now.
“The prize money I won (at the World Championship) might vanish pretty quickly on the house – it’s a nice boost to have won what I did!”
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