HANOI - Singapore's women's bowling team have retained their SEA Games title with Cherie Tan winning her third gold in Vietnam on Thursday (May 19).
The quartet of Tan, New Hui Fen, Daphne Tan and Bernice Lim scored 5,049 pinfalls at the Vincom Megamall Royal City's Heroworld Bowling Centre.
Malaysia (4,951) clinched the silver while Indonesia (4,843) was third.
The Republic had been second behind the Malaysians after Wednesday's first block of three games but surged ahead thanks to a strong score of 965 pinfalls to start the second block on Thursday and never relinquished that lead.
The Singapore men's bowling team earlier settled for bronze after Jaris Goh, Timothy Tham, Cheah Ray Han and Darren Ong racked up 4,963 pinfalls, finishing behind champions Philippines (5,275) and runners-up Malaysia (5,162).
While Ong was disappointed they did not achieve their goal of winning the event, he said they were still satisfied to have won a medal.
The 26-year-old said: "Disappointment comes with any sport... but the good thing when you don't succeed is you learn from your mistakes.
"It's only through competitions that we know what mistakes we make under pressure, which is something training can't simulate."
Cheah, 22, added: "This is a sign of growth for the men's team. We're not just satisfied with a bronze. A few years ago, we would have been really happy.
"This time we are happy but we also recognise that we didn't perform to the best of our standards and this will spur us on to go for more gold medals (in the future)."
Tham, 23, was happy to come home with a team medal in his second SEA Games outing after Singapore missed out on a medal in 2019.
"One thing is about coming home together with a medal. You can win the individual events but if your teammates didn't win, you will feel a bit sian.
"But when you come together, the energy is all positive and it feels good. That's one of the reasons we really like the team event. During the game, we build off the energy of each other and encourage each other. If one person is down, we pick each other up."
Earlier, Tham and Goh had won a silver medal while Cheah and Ong took the bronze in the doubles, which was won by Indonesia's Hardy Rachmadian and Ryan Leonard Lalisang.