Bowlers Make Clean Sweep In Doubles Events

JAKARTA: After the drought on the opening day at the Jaya Ancol Bowling Centre on Tuesday, the Malaysian bowlers began their golden harvest with a clean sweep of the gold medals at stake in the doubles events yesterday.

Zandra Aziela Ibrahim Hakimi-Jacqueline Jenelee Sijore delivered the first gold medal in the women’s competition with a six-game total of 2,463 pinfalls before Adrian Ang-Alex Liew completed the double in the evening with a 2,555 total.

Singapore’s Daphne Tan-Cherie Tan took the silver medal (2,456) while Malaysia’s Sharon Koh-Dayang Khairuniza Dhiyana took the bronze (2,413) in the women’s competition.

Striking combo: Malaysia’s Zandra Aziela (left) and Jacqueline Sijore celebrating with the Jalur Gemilang after delivering the women’s doubles gold at the Jaya Ancol Bowling Centre in Jakarta yesterday.

Biboy Rivera-Frederick Ong of the Philippines (2,490) took the men’s silver medal while Malaysia’s Mohd Syafiq Ridhwan Abdul Malek-Zulmazran Zulkifli (2,454) settled for bronze.

In the women’s competition, Zandra-Jacqueline did not have the best of starts when they fired 178 and 196 respectively in the opening game.

Sitting in eighth spot after three games, Jacqueline-Zandra doubled their efforts in the next game to push into

the second spot – six pins behind leaders Cherie-Daphne.

Jacqueline, the singles gold medallist in the Women’s World Championships in Hong Kong in September, said she never realised where they stood even after the fourth game, but sensed that Singapore were in the lead.

Bowling them over: Adrian Ang (left) and Alex Liew are all smiles after topping the men’s doubles event.

“They were cheering loudly and I knew they must be leading at that point. But at the end of the final game, they were very quiet,” said Jacqueline.

“I knew then that they were not in the lead and it came as a surprise to me that we won it.”

Alex, meanwhile, said he cherished yesterday’s win, especially as it was the same combination that landed the gold medal in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

“We came here to prove that we are still the best in the region and we did it. This is a big start for us and hopefully there will be more to come,” he said.

Adrian said the key to their success yesterday was keeping their cool despite the loud cheering by other teams on the lanes.

“The cheers told us that they were doing well at that instant. But we kept calm and played our game without thinking about what was happening around us,” said Adrian.