Fourth Place

We just returned from a long day at the bowling center. I think our schedule said we would be back at the hotel sometime around 5:30 p.m. and it’s 8:15 p.m. now … way to be on schedule! There were a lot of computer and equipment glitches that held us up all day, both in the morning and afternoon. We were supposed to go to a restaurant for a wine tasting thing, but that bus is leaving at 8:30 p.m. and I (nor many of my teammates) will be on it.

So, today was the big day, the start of the bowling competition at the 17th World Maccabiah Games. I might as well start with the end of the day – if you couldn’t guess from the title of this entry, I came in fourth. Yup, fourth place … six pins out of the medals. I won’t obsess over it (because there are plenty of shots that I can point to that cost me the medal) but I can say that I’m very happy with the way I came out of the blocks, especially on a tough condition.

To give you the numbers, I bowled 178-190-211-177-201-215 for a six-game total of 1172 (the top bowler shot 1240). The condition was very demanding – I was standing on the 25th or 26th board the entire time, playing between 13 and 15 on the lanes. The Messenger was the ball of choice for the first four games, then came out the Heat.

To accommodate the number of bowlers – and the fact that there are twice as many male bowlers as female bowlers – the men were split into two groups, with the majority bowling in the morning and the final 10 bowling in the afternoon with the women. Who bowled at what time was at the discretion of each team. We were also paired up with a bowler from our own team to “cross” lanes with. The majority of what I consider the “top” bowlers bowled in the morning, as did I; I finished the morning in fourth position and stayed there when the final results came out. For our ladies, Michelle tied for the silver medal.

We are fortunate to have all our men bowling in the afternoon group for the men (which is the larger), so not only can we work off each other when possible, but we’ll have an idea of the numbers shot in the morning squad. To make things fair, the squad times are changing from today and tomorrow, but one team each day must have all their male bowlers in the large male group – today it was Venezuela, who took gold and bronze in the men’s singles, and tomorrow it is us.

In doubles, I’m bowling with Jonathan, who finished today with 1076 for six games. Hopefully, we can put something together and be competitive tomorrow.

To have bowled so well on the first day of my first international competition on a very demanding shot, I am thrilled. I am confident that I can keep this up and can shoot well the entire tournament.
It’s time for some dinner – a sandwich with two slices of turkey on it at the bowling center for lunch just isn’t cutting it. Make sure to look for results at www.maccabiah17.com or www.maccabiusa.com so you can see how all the athletes are doing.