SINGAPORE – There are still five days of competition in the Asian Tenpin Bowling Championships in Hong Kong, but Singapore’s bowlers have already achieved their best performance in the continental meet by picking up a third gold medal through Cherie Tan, New Hui Fen and Shayna Ng in the women’s trios on Friday.
The triumvirate, who had led the 15-strong field after the first block of games on Thursday, maintained their dominance in the second block on Friday to finish tops with a 4,463-pinfall total, ahead of Malaysia (4,255) and South Korea (4,218).
Daphne Tan, Bernice Lim and Jazreel Tan were fifth on 4,145 pinfalls.
Cherie Tan had won the women’s singles on Tuesday, while Jaris Goh and Timothy Tham bagged a gold in the men’s doubles a day later.
New and Ng had also won the women’s doubles silver, with Lim and Jazreel taking the bronze.
This is the Republic’s best showing, bettering their haul of two golds and a silver at both the 2015 and 2016 Asian championships.
Ng, 34, said: “It’s always a nice feeling to win with a team. We communicated well, took turns to cover one another’s back, and it’s satisfying to know that it all paid off.”
Giving credit to Singapore Bowling Federation’s high-performance team, New added: “It is a reflection of the hard and smart work that goes into planning our training sessions and competitions throughout the year.”
Cherie believes that squad depth was also a key reason behind their success in the women’s trios, an event that Singapore have traditionally done well in at the competition.
They also won back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016.
She said: “We have a strong team of six bowlers who show up during the trios event. Also, the pace of having six to a pair is quite comfortable, which allows us to continue the momentum easily.”
With the team-of-five event coming up next, Ng hopes they can replicate their performances, saying: “(The goal is the) same as the trios – keep the momentum going, energy up, trust in the process and believe that the rest will fall in place.”
In the men’s trios on Friday, Goh, Tham and Cheah Ray Han finished fourth out of 31 teams with 4,296 pinfalls, while Basil Ng, Mike Ong and Darren Ong (4,231) ended sixth.
The event was won by Malaysia’s Muhammad Rafiq Ismail, Timmy Tan and Ahmad Muaz (4,677).
