Stefanie sun yan zi

Monday, June 26, 2006
2nd Singapore International Lawn Bowls Championship: 2days of helplessness... ended with a day of joy and happiness

Hmmm.... hasn't been feeding my blog for quite some time. During this 2 week absence there's been some ups and downs in my life. Fortunately, the joys eclipsed the unhappiness. First, I partnered edmund to an unbelievable and unexpected victory in the National Mens' 2-4-2 tournament on 15th june to clinch the position of 2nd runners up. It was continued from a few days ago, where heavy rain halted our challenge for 3rd spot. That night, almost everyone had written us off after trailing 15-4. However, we quietly clawed back the pts... at the 17th end, we manage to take back 2 shots to even at 18 all. knowing that everyone else were looking at our match with eager anticipation of an unlikely victory, edmund and I juz gave our very best. we manage to get the crucial 1 pt needed for victory against... the pair of spencer and stephen (president and v.president of bowls singapore).

After that, it was another roller coaster ride for me in training... my form juz peak and dip unpredictably in the training matches leading up to 2nd Singapore International Lawn Bowls Championship, a mixed triples tournament. This is my first international tournament... I was ecstatic when i realised that i was paired with my friends candy, wan hin and christian in Youth 'B' team. Team 'A' was made up of hui shan, melvin and edmund. This is because we have always maintained close friendship with one another which makes it easier to talk to each other when the need arises. Altogether 10 countries were invited(Brunei, China, Hongkong(Youth), Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Phillipines, Thailand and Western Australia). I was very nervous on the before the competition... worrying whether i could reproduce my form on the international stage or not.

On the first 2 days of the competition, the youth team A was in red hot form as they won all and draw one in the group stage to top the group and qualified for the cup knock-out event. However, my team, youth B had an indifferent day. We couldn't gel as well as we had thought, only winning 2 games out of a possible 5. Everyone was playing their own game... there was no team spirit and we did not believe in each other's ability, particularly me. Being a pessimist by nature, I kept wondering whether i could play to my usual standards or not. And whenever, I delivered a poor bowl, I would feel very upset and keep replaying it in my mind and 'scold' myself. Then, my morale was at an all-time low following a thrashing game by the team from singtel, the eventual runners up in the Cup event. We lost that game 24-3. I believed we were affected by the earlier game where we lost to China team A after leading for 3/4 of the game. In the end we lost narrowly... All these led to our poor showing in the group stages. we finished in 4th position and hence played in the bowls knock-out event, which is a tier below the Cup.

On day 3 which was the last day of the championship, Youth A lost their q-final tie against Brunei, who were the eventual champions of the Cup event. The game could have been won by the youths, who had to play on despite heavy downpour coupled with flashes of thunder and lightning. In the end, the more experienced bruneians won. This time, it was the Youth B, who enjoyed a different turn of fortune. By the time, we started our q-final game, the heavy downpour had subsided significantly to become slight drizzle. That game was played against the bowls singapore team. Every end was tightly contested... and at the 2nd last end, with the score tied, both teams were concentrating in playing to the best of their ability. first, my fellow junior, mingli, playing for bowls singaapore in this tournament, drew into the jack to get an advantage for her team. Next, Christian played a slight weighted shot to lightly tapped the jack towards candy's bowl which was about half a metre behind to give us the advantage. So now it was left to both skips to ensure victory for their team. bernard tried and succeeded in knocking off candy's bowl with his first attempt. wanhin, looking to emulate that feat, delivered his first shot, but the bowl refused to turn in. bernard then placed a strategic bowl in front of the holding shot to try and protect the jack. But thanks to christian's good call and judgement, wanhin played the more eccentric swinging forehand and managed to take out the shot. At that point, almost everyone present at kallang cheered for us. Our confidence were very high following that win. Next, we played Singapore Power team comprising of a group of respected players. We played well and won that game. This was an improvement from the game we played against the same opponents in the group stage. Then it came to the finals... it was my first game of the day. I did not play in the first 2 because i was still lacking confidence after my poor showing in the group stages. However, the team's performance in the earlier games boosted my confidence and convinced me that i still had what it takes to be a good bowler. We started poorly... trailing at 11-1, which was midway thru the game. To be truthful, my poor start was largely due to my nervousness at having so many people (more than 50) watching how i played. However, Candy and wanhin's performance somehow inspired my return to from as we took 18 pts from the subsequent 6 ends to win the Bowls event at 19-13.

That night, we had the appreciation dinner at Lion City hotel where representatives from all the invited countries delivered their thank you speech before the prize presentation.
I'm very glad that I managed to make alot of friends(particularly youth bowlers from hong kong), and take pictures with great bowlers from some countries. However, I missed out on taking pictures with the teams from malaysia and brunei whom i look up to... because they certainly overawed me with their deadly accuracy in a display of their fantastic lawn bowling skills.

___* hummed a yanzi tune + 4:08 AM

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