13th November, Petaling Jaya: Japan's Women's Senior 50+ Team and Men's Grand Senior 65+ Teams stole the limelight of the Team of Four at the 16th Asian Senior Bowling Championships 2022 winning the gold medals and silver while Korea picked up the Men's Senior 50+ gold.

Eiko Suzuki, Chiho Ishida, Akiko Nakagawa and Singles gold medallist, Yumiko Yoshida overhaul first block leader, Korea to win the Women's Senior 50+ Team gold with a total of 4444 pinfalls. The Japanese quartet was finished 158 pins behind Korea in the first block.

But they reeled off consistent 738, 782 and 749 in the second block to seal victory by a comfortable margin of 176 pins. Park Sookhee, Yoo Gyeonghwa, Choe Seungsoo and You Jihyun could not repeat the form they displayed in the first block to settle for the silver with 4376.

Doubles gold medallists of Kim Taeok and Cho Hanson teaming up with Son Soonjum and Lim Myeonghee, who was third in the first block, retained third position to take home the bronze medal with 4268, a further 108 pins away.

Tetsuji Yamanaka, Toru Kawashima, Takao Yoshimoto and Naoto Yoshimura settled for the bronze medal with 4787, just 14 pins behind the Saudi quartet. Two gold medallist, Hairon Bin Awang and his Doubles gold medallist partner, Paiman Bin Ali teamed up with Nelson Young and Andrew Lee leapfrog from tenth in the first block to fourth but missed the podium by 30 pins with 4757.

Meanwhile, Japan's Grand Senior 65+ dominated the Team of Four by winning the gold and silver medals in the Men's division with 4094 and 4000 respectively. Atsumi Fujiyama, Takayuki Kikugawa, Satoshi Matsubara and Masanobu Matsui took the gold while Yoshinari Hattori, Akira Nakada, Tadashi Fujita and Tomokazu Maeda gave Japan the silver medal. Korea picked up the bronze medal with 4573.

Atsuko Oku, Misako Karatsu, Horomi Tsuzaki and Tomoko Yoshikawa were equally impressive after winning Japan's third gold medal in the Women's Grand Senior 65+ Team of Four with a total of 4094, 96 pins ahead of arch-rival Korea. Hwang Wolyoung, Jin Jongrye, Kim Charsoon and Lee Chuljung settled for the silver with 4000. A second Korean quartet finished third for the bronze medal with 3998.

Japan dominated the Men's Grand Senior 65+ All-Events standings winning all three medals. Yusuke Harimoto of Japan took the gold with 3714, Takayuki Kikugawa the silver with 3668 and Akira Nakada the bronze with 3623. An additional bronze medal was awarded to Paeng Nepomuceno of Philippines when the top three finishers are from the same country.

In contrast, Korean Women's Grand Senior 65+ went home with the gold and silver medals with 3273 and 3261 respectively. Atsuko Oku settled for the bronze medal with 3241.

Four Men's Senior from Korea, three each from Singapore, Japan and Saudi Arabia, one each from Australia, Malaysia and Philippines made the Round-robin Masters finals.

Four Men's Grand Senior from Japan, four from Korea, four from Philippines, two from Singapore and one each from Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei finished in the top 16 and qualified for the Masters finals. Four Women's Senior 50+ from Japan, four from Korea, four from Malaysia, one each from Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore made up the rest of the 16 for the Masters finals.