KUWAIT: The ordinary General Assembly of the Asian Bowling Federation will hold its meeting, on the sidelines of the 25th Championship, that will see its competition start today. The meeting will be chaired by International and Asian Bowling Federations President Sheikh Talal Al-Mohammad with 39 countries representatives in attendance.
As delegations of participating countries arrived, preparations are at their peak, as teams went through their official training, and it will be the prelude to real competition for medals, the first of which will be handed tomorrow, for women's individual gold.

The official bowls will be registered in the mornings and evenings, while lanes will be oiled, for teams to carry out official training starting with the first group of countries.

Many countries will work hard to end the dominance of South Korea over the last 5 championships in 2016, 2015, 2012, 2011, 2008. Those countries include Malaysia, Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Australia and Singapore which had a monopoly along with South Korea over the medals during the previous championship which was held in Hong Kong.
Indonesia, India, China and UAE have a good chance to return to the winning ranks.

The Asian countries are will placed in the world scene as S Korea is fourth among the most medals winning countries during world championships, while Taipei comes fifth, Australia eight, Malaysia 11, Philippines 13 and Singapore 15th.
Meanwhile in women's rankings S Korea is second, Philippines fourth, Malaysia fifth, Japan sixth, Australia sixth and Taipei 11th.

By Abdellatif Sharaa