Singapore emerges as overall champion
14th July, Jakarta: Singles gold medalist, Joey Yeo Ruoqi captured her second individual gold medal at the 14th Asian School Tenpin Bowling Championships with victory in the Girl’s Masters stepladder finals to give Singapore girls its record fifth gold medal.
The title match in the girl’s championship finals was an all-Singapore affair. Second seed, Joey Yeo Ruoqi won both the games against team-mate and top seed, Kristin Quah, 223-193 and 236-212 for a 459-406 victory to win her second individual gold medal.
Her victory also gave Singapore girls their record fifth gold medal at the championship underlining their total superiority. Yeo had earlier sailed past third seed, Shin Hye-Ji of Korea, 202-178 in the semi-finals to face Quah.
“The match against the Korean was a bit more exciting as I bowled much better,” said the 15-year-old champion. “I didn’t have a good game against Kristin in the first match but I had some lucky strikes.
“The second match was much better. I guess it didn’t matter much who won as either way, Singapore would win the gold which was more important.”
Quah had earlier retained her lead with a hugh margin of 277 pins at the end of the second block finals with 3615 winning six matches. Yeo finished second with 3338 with five wins. The Korean took the final stepladder spot with 3314.
All Events gold medalist, Tracy See finished fifth with 3247 while Kimberly Ooi was disappointed to end in sixth after she was secondin the first block yesterday.
Meanhile first block leader, Adhiguna Widiantoro easily defeated last year’s Masters champion and All Events gold medalist, Abdulla Ahmed of Kuwait, 211-148 in the first match.
Adhiguna posted a faultless game to beat top seed, Muhammad Aizudeen, 237-222 in first of two game total pinfall match to take a 15 pins margin going into the second game.
With strong support from his team-mates and the local crowd, the Indonesian youngster fired eight consecutive strikes while his opponent responded with six strikes in a row.
But the gap Adhiguna has built up was simply too much for the Malaysian to handle closing out the game with 255 to Aizudeen’s 236 to give his country its second gold medal with a 492-458 victory.
Aizudeen had taken over the lead in the second block after the third match to end the block and advanced as top seed with 3722 from six wins. Adhiguna finished second with 3609 and Abdulla third with 3569.
Singapore’s four boys finalists, Muhammad Jaris Goh, Javier Tan, Marcus Leong and Darren Ong ended their campaign in seventh, eighth, tenth and 14th position respectively.
Singapore had their best-ever championships emerging as champions in all three categories. They took the overall champion title with a medal haul of 7-3-2. The girls set a new record of winning all the five gold medals.
Singapore boys edged Indonesia for the boy’s title despite having the same 2-1-1 medal haul. But Singapore had a better finish in the All Events with fourth, fifth and sixth placings to Indonesia’s 12th and 15th.
The host nation finished second in the overall medal standings while the only other country with a gold medal was Kuwait with 1-1-1 medal haul. 88 boys and 48 girls from 14 countries participated in this year’s championship hosted by Persatuan Boling Indonesia at Jaya Ancol Bowl.
Detailed scores: Girl’s Stepladder Finals | Boy’s Stepladder Finals | Girl’s Block 2 Masters | Boy’s Block 2 Masters | Photo Album.
Photos by Terence Yaw in Jakarta.