Commonwealth Games: Pauline Buck: Ten-pin bowling: World beater on world stage

PAULINE BUCK is not - yet anyway - a well-known name outside the close-knit family of her sport, but she is one of England's brighter hopes of a gold medal in Kuala Lumpur..

The 42-year-old housewife and part-time tele-sales operator has been the No 1 ranked ten-pin bowler in England for the last seven years and has an impressive array of titles. Her CV includes winning the World Cup title twice, in 1981 and 1993, the World Games title in 1993, and numerous European and British titles.

The sport has been given full medal status for the first time at this year's Commonwealth Games, which means that Buck at last can display her talents to a wider audience.

The popular conception of ten-pin is as a leisure activity enjoyed by families on the weekend, but it has been a demonstration sport in two Olympics and is one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

Buck has spent much of her career putting up with detractors saying her sport isn't really a sport at all. Next month she can start to get her own back. "Everybody says that it is not a proper sport, but a lot of people play it and we have world championships and tournaments around the world," she said.

For Buck, who turned down a scholarship to play in America after winning her first world title, the lack of recognition at home did rankle when she was younger but she says she is older and wiser now.

"It did used to upset me that I don't get the recognition," Buck said. "I remember back in 1993 when Sally Gunnell won her athletics titles and was plastered everywhere in the papers and on the television and I had just won a world title but nobody seemed to notice.

"But I suppose I get my privacy and can walk down the street and nobody knows who I am. I remember when I was world champion I was out shopping and a young boy was with his mother and he was saying he had seen me on television and his mother turned around to him and said: 'Don't be silly, people on TV don't shop here, but in Harrods'," she recalled.

Buck started bowling at the age of nine when her parents used to take her to the local centre in Streatham and she took to it so well so early that she was a full England international by the time she was 14. As a precocious youngster she declared to her father that she was going to be the best in the world, and unlike so many of her fellow British sporting contemporaries she delivered the goods.

Although her chosen sporting career has not given her massive riches or fame it has given her the chance to travel the world and play a game she is still in love with.

Buck herself is competing in the individual, women's doubles and mixed doubles, giving her three opportunities to add a gold medal to her trophy cabinet at home in Guildford. But she, and the rest of the four-strong English team, Gemma Burden, Richard Hood and Wayne Greenhall, will have their work cut out in Kuala Lumpur, especially against the host nation.

The Malaysian ten-pin bowling squad have been given royal support and have been in training for more than a year for the Commonwealth Games, but the country has still not named its team.

It is rumoured that the Malaysians, for whom ten-pin bowling is a major sport, have spent more than pounds 250,000 to produce a team capable of winning only their second medal ever at the Games.

That sort of money is only a dream for Buck, who is still an amateur, and sandwiches 15-20 hours of practice a week (every afternoon) around the demands of her family and part-time job.

"Malaysia are very strong and along with England, Australia and Canada they are the favourites to win the medals," Buck said.

"You can never say you are going to win a gold medal but I personally feel that if we don't come back with a medal I will be very disappointed."