Bronze for Wilson and O’Neill in women’s pairs

Nigel Ringland - BBC Sport NI Senior Journalist Tue, July 28, 2026 at 12:11 PM UTC

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Friendship can go a long way in sport.

For Chloe Wilson and Shauna O’Neill, that bond helped turned tears of disappointment into tears of joy in the space of 12 hours.

From the heartbreak of missing out on the women’s pairs final after an extra end defeat to Malaysia the duo managed to lift themselves, somehow, to beat Lauren Gowen and Amy Williams from Wales 4-2, 5-4 to claim the bronze medal.

“It was a real rollercoaster to be fair," O’Neill told BBC Sport NI.

“Getting beaten in a tiebreak in a semi-final when you think you have maybe just done enough to sneak over was heartbreaking to be honest.

“We worked hard to get ourselves to that point and we didn't really get back to the room until late and we knew that we were up early for this game, so we didn't have a lot of time to come around.

“However, me and Chloe share in a room. We had our moment, we let the emotions that we needed to feel, we felt them, and we woke up this morning, and we were just buzzing to go.”

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'It is something really special' - Wilson

The duo are best friends and Wilson, tears filling her eyes, described what the moment meant.

“A lot. Words can't even describe how much it means. Just to be standing up there with Shauna, it's something really special," she said.

“Bronze medal games are tough, but we knew we had the belief in each other and we knew it was just one more game and we'll win this. We're going home with something."

O'Neill also credited the resilience that the pair had to display and said the moment "is going to live with me for the rest of my life".

"Whenever we won bronze at Worlds in 2023, that was really special memories, but I think this one's more special because we had to go out fighting for it," she continued.

“We had to pick ourselves up. We had to be positive. There was a lot of emotions we had to overcome to do it. So, I think that's why this is going to feel really nice.”

O’Neill doesn’t have long to celebrate as she’s back in singles action on Tuesday evening, while Wilson will take on the role of lead cheerleader.

After all that’s what friends do….

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Source: “AOL Sports”