NAMIBIA’s bowlers got off to a great start at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi on Monday as they won all their matches against strong opposition.
Namibia’s Men’s Trips team of Graham Snyman, Steven Peake and Will Esterhuizen junior, displayed nerves of steel to win two tiebreak matches and beat highly rated New Zealand and Canada.
Against Canada, Namibia won the first set 9-5, but Canada recovered to take the second set by the same scoreline. The match had to be decided on a tiebreak and Namibia finished strongly to win 5-0.
In their second match Namibia took on one of the world’s top three sides, New Zealand, and were soon in trouble as New Zealand won the first set 8-4. Namibia however showed great determination to take the second set 14-7 to once again force the match into a tiebreak. Here, Namibia once again shone under pressure to win the tiebreak 4-2 and the match.
Namibia’s women’s pairs team of Diana Viljoen and Theuna Grobler won their opening two matches against Norfolk Island and Canada in straight sets, although they were pushed all the way.
They beat Norfolk Island 2-0 (11-8, 11-9) and then beat Canada 2-0 (10-8, 9-7).
Namibian Bowls’ PRO Ken Moreland was elated with the news.
‘This is a great start for Namibia. To beat a country like New Zealand, which is amongst the top three teams in the world, is a great achievement and it shows what Namibian bowls is capable of achieving,’ he said.
Namibia’s archers found the going tougher in the Compound Men’s 70m qualifying competition on Monday.
The event was won by Seppie Cilliers of South Africa with a score of 704, while Namibia’s top archer was Johannes Grobler who came 14th with a score of 694.
Namibia’s other two archers, Dirk Bockmuhl and Ben van Wyk came 24th and 25th respectively after both had a score of 683 points. A total of 48 archers completed the competition.
Gymnast, Robert Honiball, qualified for the final of the All Around Men’s competition after finishing 23rd overall in the qualifying competition on Monday.
He, however, failed to reach any of the apparatus finals.
Honiball finished 23rd overall to clinch a place amongst the top 24 gymnasts who will compete in the All Around Men’s final. Honiball finished with a total score of 74.550.
– namibiasport.com.na
