India Clinches 25 Medals at the Special Olympics Asia Pacific Bocce and Bowling Competition

• Bowling athletes shine with 14 medals including four gold while Bocce contingent secured 11 medals including one gold

Rakesh Thapliyal

New Delhi: India finished the first ever Special Olympics Asia Pacific Bocce and Bowling Competition with an impressive haul of 25 medals which concluded here at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex and RCUBE Monad which hosted Bocce and Bowling respectively. The Indian bowling contingent contributed 14 medals to the tally including four gold, six silver and four bronze medals and the bocce team hauled 11 medals which included one gold, four silver and six bronze medals.

The women’s bowling contingent were impressive winning three out of India’s four gold medals. The quartet of Shraddha Patel, Neha Singh, Shimran Pujara and Susri Sangeeta Nayak clinched gold in the team event beating Malaysia in the finals. Sharaddha then combined with Shimran to overcome Neha and Susri Sangeeta Nayak in the doubles event finals to secure their second gold medal of the tournament. In the singles event Neha had the last laugh over Sharddha, beating her in the finals to win gold in Division 3 and finish the tournament with three medals each. Susri and Shimran also secured their third medals of the tournament winning bronze in Division 1 and 2 respectively.

In the Men’s Category, the only Gold came through Prakash Vaghela who won the Division 6 singles beating Ibhanan Sahu in the finals. Both athletes had earlier paired up to win bronze in Division 3 doubles while the pair of Ankit and Nirupam Dey also secured bronze in Division 2. Ankit and Nirupam also secured silver medals in the Division 5 and 8 respectively. The four athletes then combined together to win silver in the team event, losing to Uzbekistan in the finals.

India’s only gold medal in Bocce secured in the Women’s Doubles (Age 22-29) category where G. Subashini and Priyanka overcame the Australian pair of Andreas Dundes Catherine and Tegan O’Keeffe in the all-important finals. Githa Larasati and Dona Fitri Rahmawatry of Indonesia won bronze in the category.

The men’s doubles pair of Kabir Pritam Baruah and Ebenezer David won the bronze medal in the 22-29 Age category. The pair thencombined with Manjula and Poornima Madan to win another bronze in the Mixed Team 1 division. In the Mixed Team 2 division India’s Devesh Agarwal, Wilfred Dsouza, Priyanka and G. Subashini went down to Potter Dale Steven, David Paul Stewart, Andreas Dundes  Catherine and Tegan O’Keeffe of Australia in the finals and ended up with the silver medal.

India won seven medals in the singles category to cap of an impressive couple of days for the Indian contingent. Poornima Madan and Manjula won silver medal in the Women’s 30+ age category in the FO4 and FO6 categories while Wilfred Dsouza won the silver in the Men’s MO2 (22-29 age) division.

1. Subashini in the FO2 Division, Ebenezer David in the MO1 division, Devesh Agarwal in the MO3 division and Kabir Pritam Baruah in the MO7 division secured the bronze medals for India in the singles category.

The Special Olympics Asia Pacific Bocce and Bowling Competition was the first of its kind on a global scale to be held in India. It focused on older athletes with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) aged 22 or above. The competition offered unique opportunities for the often-underserved age group whose participation in sports typically declines as they get older.

More than 100 athletes from 12 Special Olympics Programs participated in the competition, hailing from three different regions, namely, East Asia, Europe Eurasia, and Asia Pacific. It also marked a historic first for Special Olympics Bharat (SOB) as it introduced bowling as a competitive sport for Special athletes, in partnership with the Tenpin Federation of India.