Medal chance slips away for Singapore
20th August, Munich: Singapore bowlers allowed a chance to win a medal slipped away after missing the top four five-player team final shootout of the World Men's Championships 2010 ending the second block in eighth position overall on Friday. The Singapore quintet had started the first block on Thursday in the lead with two inspiring games of 1134 and 1043 but slipped down to third after losing their focus in the last game to manage only 892.
Tiac Pin, Wong, Basil Low (replacing Justin Lim), Yeong-Nathan and Ong struggled to settled down in the fourth game when the second block resumed on Friday rolling 936. Despite a spirited fight back, Singapore posted 1045 and 1004 to end the event with 6054.
Colombia topped the squad with 6119, 28 pins ahead of Korea and 65 pins further away to Singapore. The Colombians also managed to squeeze into the finals after Squad 1 completed their second block.
United States took the squad with 6376 to advance into the finals in pole position followed by Finland in second with 6358. Host nation, Germany thrilled the packed house of German supporters by snatching third spot with 6226 to secure a place in the finals as third seed.United States went on to win their third gold medal after a defeating Finland in a closely fought final match, 1073-1057 to claim victory. Team USA's Bill O'Neill, Chris Barnes, Wes Malott, Patrick Allen and Tommy Jones beat Colombia, 1048-970 in the semi-final.
Finland's Petteri Solonen, Joonas Jehi, Pasi Uotila, Mika Koivnuniemi and Osku Palermaa beat Germany, 996-941 in the other semi to face the mighty Americans.
"There are a lot of positives we're taking back although we didn't win any medals," said head coach, William Woo. "The lanes were extremely challenging and what we need to do when we get back is to learn how to deal with varying lane patterns."
"We know what we need to work on when we prepare for our next major championship notably to train on several long and several medium lane pattern to prepare ourselves better. We also need to try out a few more different types of bowlng balls."
Singles gold medalist, Bill O'Neill won his second individual gold medal after topping the All Events standings. Chris Barnes gave USA another silver finishing second while Jang Dong-Chul of Korea took home with the bronze medal.
Six from the American zone, three from Europe (all Finns) and seven from Asia made the Masters finals and no Singaporeans made the cut.
Detailed scores: Team of 5 Block 2 Combined | Team of 5 Shootout Finals | All Events.
Photos by Terence Yaw in Munich.