Nora Lyana gives M’sia second gold

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Junior bowling squad won a second gold medal at the 18th Asian Bowling Federation (ABF Asia) Junior Bowling Championships in Macau, through Nora Lyana Natasia Norkamal, yesterday.

Nora Lyana who competed in the women’s junior singles category knocked down 1,359 pins to beat Joy Yap from Singapore (1,344 pins) while Alisha Nabila, also from Singapore knocked down 1,308 pins for third place.

Three other Malaysians who competed in the same event, finished in 10th, 12th and 14th places.

Nur Syazwani Sahar knocked down 1,232 pins for 10th spot followed by Nur Amirah Auni Azman (1,227) and Natasha Roslan (1,216).

Yesterday, squad A leader, Muhammad Rafiq remained unchallenged and celebrated his 18th birthday Tuesday by winning the Boy’s singles gold medal.

According to Asian Bowling Federation (ABF) in its website, the 2015 Asian Championships all-events silver medalist, Muhammad Rafiq set the record-breaking benchmark of 1,615 pins in the opening squad to win the gold by a comfortable margin of 135 pins.

“I could not have wished for a better birthday present than to win my first gold medal here,” said the estatic Muhammad Rafiq, who won two silver and a bronze medal at the Asian Championships in January this year.

“And to break two records in the process has put the icing on the cake. I hope to carry my form into the doubles, team and masters events,” he added.

The Malaysian also erased the three-games record of 765 with 845 pins and in the sixgames record of 1,509 both set by Jason Belmonte of Australia in 2004 in Bangkok.

While squad B leader, Enrico Lorenzo Hernandez of the Philippines, who rolled the tournament’s first perfect game, took the silver medal with 1,480 pinfalls and Javier Tan of Singapore, who finished second to the Filipino, picked up the bronze medal with 1,433, a further 47 pins away making it an all-lefty 1-2-3.