Tiziana Carannante is an elite female bowler who has plenty of experience representing Team Malta in international championships. However, as the country’s sole competitively viable facilities closed down for revamping on 8 January 2024, Carannante and the rest of the local bowling community were left to find alternatives or simply cope with the alley’s temporary closure while their training sessions, tournaments, and leagues were left in limbo for at least five months.

“None of us expected it, and for people like me who love the sport and have national duties, you cannot just stop for so long,” she said.

The Maltese athlete quickly adapted through pastures abroad in dealing with the lack of available facilities. Carannante’s solution was to become a member of the Federazione Italiana Sport Bowling (FSIB), join a club in Turin, Italy, and commute to and from Malta to seek more practice and some competitive spirit over a thousand kilometres away from home.

“It was always something I wished to do and this opportunity came at the perfect time with our only bowling alley in Malta closing down for 5-6 months,” she told The Malta Independent. “I go to train and play tournaments whenever I have the opportunity to do so.” Within her first month of making this decision, she has already gone to Turin twice to enjoy the packed Italian bowling events calendar.

In her first friendly tournament in Turin at the end of January, she described to have felt like she was in space being in a new place and, more significantly, not having trained for over a month. Despite her feeling so out of practice, Carannante still managed to average a decent score of 191 throughout the five games she played – a score she was quite happy with given her forced time away from the lanes, and the fact that a missing marker on the lanes caused her to throw some shots from the wrong position.

In her first official regional tournament for her Torinese bowling club, Carannante scored an average of 199 per game to finish in second place, which was enough for her to qualify for the Italian finals that will be held next month in April. Aside from these finals, the Maltese bowler is eyeing other official regional tournaments that are to be played in doubles and trios formats within the same period. She is hoping that she will once again play well enough to secure qualification for the finals of these respective tournaments, with her partners, that are scheduled to be played in July.

Since the sport of bowling is not how Carannante makes her living, the Maltese athlete is taking two-weeks’ worth of leave from her work in order to fulfil her commitment to bowling in Italy (including national duty for Team Malta) next month. She is hoping that she will manage to take significant time off again from work in June so that she may participate in the European Women’s Championship as a Maltese representative.

“I am trying to train as much as possible although the conditions in Malta are not ideal,” she said. Carannante went from no bowling (training or competition) in January, to training once or twice weekly with the makeshift arrangements set up for local training plus her two trips to Italy for training and friendly competition. As of this month, as a member of Team Malta in the upcoming Mediterranean Bowling Championships in Rome between 21-28 April, Carannante will be training four times a week locally via the respective facilities by commuting to Mellieħa and Gozo. She is also preparing to go to Catania in Sicily to participate in the second Malta-Sicily friendship games after already playing in the first edition held last month.

“The more I can train, the better it is to keep up [my game], so whatever comes along is always a plus for me,” she said.

She told this newsroom that she began entertaining this idea last year when a long-time friend of hers visited Malta last October. After her friend once again suggested that she becomes a member of the Italian Bowling Federation and joins her bowling club in Turin this year, Carannante “immediately accepted and took it as a great opportunity to keep training and gain more experience bowling in a different country, different cities and different bowling alleys.”

Carannante credited her Torinese friend, Alessandra, for aiding her to fill out all the necessary paperwork and fulfil all the desired requirements to be able to bowl in Italy. She also offers the Maltese athlete free hospitality at her house whenever she travels to bowl in or near the city of Turin. The pair also travels together by car whenever they must drive to a different city. Carannante’s fluency in Italian has helped her integrate with the local bowling community in Turin rather easily, especially with everyone’s shared love for the niche sport.

She has stated that once the new centre reopens, she will naturally seek to train more at a local level, though she will still hope to “keep going up for regular tournaments in Italy too”. Her reasoning is that continuing this journey would build up her confidence playing abroad as she gains more experience playing in different environments.

When asked about the future of her bowling career, Carannante said that “representing Team Malta was and till now remains my long-term personal ambition” and that “It is always an honour to represent your own country.”

However, she admitted that “if things in Malta get worse and there will be no more opportunities”, she might reconsider applying for Italian citizenship and try to represent Italy instead. Having an Italian father, this was a real consideration for Carannante in the past. She explained that had she completed all the necessary paperwork and managed to represent Italy in any international tournament, she would have been barred from representing Team Malta for at least five years.

In the end, she is hoping that her experience in Italy will help to keep gaining confidence and enough knowledge to make the right decisions in her game.

 

Kyle Patrick Camilleri is the former PRO of the Malta Bowling Association.