Singapore up for the challenge

Singapore up for the challenge

14th November, Guangzhou: The new lanes at Tianhe Bowling Hall appeared to be extremely challenging but Team Singapore are eager and cannot wait for the 16th Asian Games bowling competition to kick off on Monday. Team Singapore took to the lanes in the second squad of Day 2 official practice session over the long oil pattern trying out their equipment prepared for the competition.

The lane suface of the 38-lane center are AMF SPL's with a new Medex underalay and the approaches were original wood freshly cut and measuring 16 feet long which were refurbished for the games.

The plates on every single kickback were replaced while the flatgutters are synthetic and brand new on every lane. The depth is approximately 3 and a half inches on every lane. The pins used are Qubica AMFlite II's

Pinspotters are 82-90XL's that have been refurbished by the same crew that leveled the lanes during installations.   Scoring unite are Qubica and installed by a technician from Italy who went through some different scenarios every day to ensure that the system does what it's supposed to do. Large flat screens were also installed for scoring as well as monitors in the middle to view standings. Most of the players and coaches have expressed that the short oil pattern is easier and most of the players were using the extreme outside line.

In today's long oil pattern, everyone has indicated that although there are oil in the front and longer, the backend is still as strong. It will indeed be very challenging for the players to adapt.

The main reason for the stronger backend appears to center around the new Medex underlay used which tends to dry up a little quicker.

"The condition for the short oil is quite similar to the ones we were practising back home but it appeared to be much shorter," said head coach, William Woo.   "There's a lot of difference in the long oil pattern from the ones we have prepared ourselves. It has a much stronger backend but we are making the necessary adjustments and have identified the bowling balls we will register for the competition."

"The team spirit and bonding is very good at this Asiad and I believe it's because we have trained together for a longer time and we have gotten used to each other better," said Remy Ong.

This sentiment is shared by both Jasmine Yeong-Nathan and the rest of the team-mates as she was interviewed by reporter from Starhub TV.

"We're confident that we'll do much better this time and our team spirit is very high. We realised there is a lot at stake and we're up for the challenge," added the 2008 World Cup champion, Jasmine.

Uzbeksitan team finally arrive late last night and will in fact be competing with six men. So the new total is 101 men and 74 women (minus 2 from India pulling out) making a total of 175 bowlers.

Competition will get underway tomorrow (November 15) with the Men's Singles split into two squads and on Tuesday (November 16) with the Women's Singles again into two squads.

Detailed information: Final Entries by NOC. Photos by Terence Yaw in Guangzhou.