Incheon: After having missed out on a bronze medal at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, the UAE’s bowling coach has promised a much better show when the national team face their next major challenge at the World Cup in Poland next month.
The UAE squad came close to a bronze medal in the men’s team of 5 competition held at the Anyang Hogye Gymnasium, on Tuesday. Trailing in sixth place overall, the UAE squad of Shaker Ali Hussain, Hareb Al Mansouri, Mahmoud Al Attar, Naif Oqab and Shaker Ali Hussain staged a valiant fightback, only to end tied fourth with China with an identical total pin-fall of 5,896 – a mere four pins short of bronze medallist Hong Kong.
Hosts South Korea were dominant in the event, taking the gold medal with a total pin-fall of 6,228, leaving Malaysia with the silver 242 pins adrift, while Hong Kong sneaked in for the bronze with a total of 5,896.
In past Asian Games, including the ongoing one, the UAE has bagged a total of 25 medals. The bowling teams, over the years, have been the most successful for the UAE - bringing in 10 Asian Games medals so far.
Tuesday night’s fourth place performance in the men’s team of 5 was the best the bowlers could come up with in Incheon. “One really cannot put a finger on a specific thing that has affected our performance here. The lanes were hard to play on, and perhaps we needed a bit of luck to be with us,” the UAE’s new bowling coach William Rowe, told Gulf News.
Rowe took over the national team two months back and has been trying to understand and learn about the players on his team. “The next competition for us will be the Dubai Open Bowling and I intend to use this to see who can perhaps be the one player representing the UAE at the World Cup in Poland,” Rowe disclosed.
“We return home now and see how things work out at the Dubai Open and then we will come up with the UAE representative to Poland,” the Canadian added.
First held in 1965, the QubicaAMF World Cup will be held in Wroclaw, Poland from November 1 to 10. Each country chooses one male and one female player to participate in this elite competition.