Peter Belliss
Quick Facts
Biography
Peter James Belliss, MBE, is a former lawn bowls player for New Zealand.
Background
Belliss was born in Wanganui in 1951, attending (and playing rugby football at) Wanganui Boys' College. He started playing in the 1970s in the Aramaho (Wanganui) club; Romanos called him The young Turk of lawn bowls. He had been a railways fitter, and in 1982 was the first New Zealand lawn bowler to turn professional.
Bowls career
At the World Bowls Championships, Bellis won the 1984 singles in Aberdeen against local player Willie Wood, the 1988 pairs with Rowan Brassey, and men's triples with Brassey and Andrew Curtain at the 2000 World Outdoor Bowls Championship in Johannesburg.
He has competed at four Commonwealth Games: 1982 (winning bronze), 1994 (winning bronze), 1998, and 2002; missing 1986 as a professional and 1990 as he had played in South Africa five years previously.
He was a coach at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Honours
In the 1988 Queen's Birthday Honours, Belliss was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to bowls. In 2013, Belliss was an inaugural inductee into the Bowls New Zealand Hall of Fame.