Rebecca Van Asch takes coronavirus break in her stride

Instead, the 32-year-old has spent more time away from the bowling green than ever before.

A three-time world champion after winning the fours and the triples in New Zealand in 2016, Van Asch had been selected among a 10-strong Jackaroos team to compete on the Gold Coast this week and next.

But in April the coronavirus pandemic forced organisers to push the event back 12 months, extending Van Asch's wait between championships to five years.

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"It's a bit of a mixed emotion today to be honest," Van Asch said.

"Obviously we would have loved to be out there trying to defend our titles and instead we're here with an extra 12 months up our sleeve.

"We don't normally have 12 months of knowing we're in the team and training for that, so we're trying to spin that into a positive and spend 12 months trying to prepare for the campaign now.

"There's a lot of work still to do and we're not all back on the greens training yet because of restrictions in our own states, but we're doing other training to try and prepare and hopefully we'll be able to put our best foot forward in 2021."

The Gold Coast has been a happy hunting ground for Van Asch, who won two Commonwealth Games gold medals at Broadbeach in 2018.

The Bowls Tasmania president became a mother at the end of the same year and followed on with Australia's international bowler of the year award in 2019 before an enforced break.

"I haven't been out on the greens now for about 10 or 11 weeks now which is the longest time I've ever spent off a bowls green," she said.

"I didn't even spend this much time off the green when I had my baby so it's been very different.

"Me and a lot of the rest of the team have tried to put our focus into a stricter fitness regime than what we've done before, so hopefully we're actually hitting the greens fitter and healthier than we've ever been."

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