The Philippine bowling team added another gold medal in its historic run in the 31st Southeast Asian Games as the Filipino keglers topped the men’s team-of-4 event at the Royal City Hanoi Bowling Lanes on Thursday, May 19.
Merwin Tan who ended the PH’s 11-year medal drought with a golden performance in the singles event, joined hands with Christian Dychangco, Ivan Malig and Patrick Neil Niqui to ascend from the tough competition and give the country its best showing in SEA Games bowling in recent years with its second gold.
The quartet came away with the gold mint after hitting a total of 5275 pinfalls, way ahead of silver and bronze medalists Malaysia and Singapore which only had 5163 and 4964 pinfalls, respectively.
Tan stamped his class in the tournament after hitting 1411 pinfalls on a 237.5 average—an individual-best in the six team field—to spearhead the Filipinos while Dychangco provided support with 1377 pinfalls on a 229.50 average, including a tournament-high 278 in the sixth and final game.
Malig had his fair share with 1285 pinfalls on an average of 214.17 while Nuqui added 1202 on 200.33 as the Filipinos started out strong in the first game and kept their hold of the lead in the next five rounds to emerge victorious in the contest.
Indonesia finished fourth (4890), followed by Thailand (4691), and Vietnam (4570).
Women’s silver medalist Alexis Sy will lead the country’s quest for a double gold team win in the distaff side later Thursday.