Maccabi GB Tenpin Bowling

12th July – Gary ‘3 scoops’ Ellis shoots 300!!

There’s an old saying about leaving the best for last and that was certainly the case for Gary as in game 5 of the Masters event he rolled his second perfect game and first in a tournament.  It was a fantastic achievement and it certainly looked like it had been coming over the last couple of days.

Gary continued his excellent form of the past couple of days and was right in contention all day but was just pipped to 3rd place by Yuval Regler from Switzerland.  Marc Sherlis from USA edged out Nathan Stainer for 1st place with both these athletes getting gold, Yuval silver and Gary bronze.  The standard at the top of the competition was again very high with Gary averaging 222 over his 14 games and unable to get in the top 3! Yuval averaged 222.4, Nathan 226.6 and Marc 234.2.

Myself, Jack and Darren couldn’t keep up with the pace and finshed 11th, 12th and 13th respectively.

It was a fantastic end to a brilliant week of competition and the standard was certainly the highest at a European games for some time.

Here is our final medals tally

Singles – Silver (Ian Davis)

Trios – European Gold (Gary Ellis, Jack Nesbit and Ian Davis)

Team – European Gold (Gary Ellis, Darren Sassienie, Ian Davis and Jack Nesbit)

               Bronze (Richie Kneip and Brad Mervish plus 2)

All Events – European Sliver (Gary Ellis)

Masters – European Bronze (Gary Ellis)

Oh and a 300 game for Gary Ellis!

So it’s good bye to Vienna and attentions must now turn to Israel and the Maccabiah Games in 2013.  

 

11th July – GB win European Gold

The 4 person team event followed a similar pattern to the trios a day earlier with the strong USA unit just edging us out of 1st place in the competition.  This meant that USA won the International gold and we were awarded the European gold as the best placed European team.

A sudden format change on the morning of the event meant that Brad and Richie were unable to be part of the GB team and were mixed with a Swiss and USA bowler to form a mixed team.  I was vehemently opposed to this but unfortunately this was the only way for the event to go ahead with medals available.  As it stood the mixed team ended up with a well deserved bronze medal.

Gary Ellis was again the star for GB shooting 1333 over his 6 games with his 3 game set in the afternoon being 735.  The rest of us just couldn’t get the consistency needed which would have enabled us to beat the USA team.  Gary finished 4th in the All Events standings with an aggregate of 5081 over 24 games at an average of 212 earning him a European Silver medal.

Team event scores

Gary Ellis  204 217 177 268 245 222 

Darren Sassienie  195 223 202 179 189 147

Ian Davis  262 196 146 170 156 186

Jack Nesbit  184 212 161 170 191 214

Total  4716

Richard Kneip  188 159 157 149 151 189

Brad Mervish  142 146 119 156 170 17o

Final All Events standings - top 14 qualify for the Masters

Gary Ellis  Pinfall – 5081  Average  211.7  Position – 4th

Jack Nesbit  Pinfall – 4799  Average 200  Position – 8th

Ian Davis  Pinfall – 4624  Average  192.7  Position – 11th

Darren Sassienie  Pinfall – 4522  Average  188.4  Position – 13th

Richard Kneip  Pinfall – 4223  Average 176  Position – 15th

Brad Mervish  Pinfall – 3894  Average  162.2  Position – 16th

 

10th July – Trios team bring home Gold

The GB trio of Gary Ellis, Ian Davis and Jack Nesbit won the European Gold medal at today’s trios competition here in Vienna.

Officially we finished second to the USA by 78 pins but the games regulations are such that it is the highest placed European team that is awarded the gold medal and that was us.

Again the scores were good and the top three teams battled it out for the medals all the way from start to finish.  We were leading at the halfway stage with all three of us hitting 600+ but it wasn’t a good afternoon for me so I had to rely on the 2 stars of the team so far, Gary and Jack, who bowled fantasticly well to shoot 1341 and 1293 respectively.

The GB2 trio of Darren Sassienie, Brad Mervish and Richard Kneip battled hard but couldn’t hit the big numbers required to challenge for the medals and finished in 5th place.

Both Jack and Gary pushed themselves up the all events table with Jack now in 6th and Gary in 4th.  Myself and Darren are also in the top 14 and need a good set tomorrow in the 4 man team event to ensure we are in the Masters event on Tuesday.  The main focus tomorrow however will be trying to take the Gold in the team event so look out for tomorow’s update to see how we faired.

Trios scores

GB1

Gary Ellis  203 213 213 237 207 268

Ian Davis  215 184 219 159 168 165

Jack Nesbit  200 226 234 246 196 191

Overall total 3744  Position 2nd

GB2

Darren Sassienie  186 193 196 178 172 195

Brad Mervish  168 181 171 155 161 135

Richard Kneip  162 201 169 186 171 166

Overall total  3146   Position  5th

All events standings

Gary Ellis  3748     4th

Jack Nesbit  3667  6th

Ian Davis   3508  11th

Darren Sassienie   3387  13th

Richard Kneip  3230  15th

Brad Mervish    2991   16th

 

8th July – Doubles trouble for GB

It has been a disappointing day on the whole as none of our 3 doubles pairings challenged for a medal.  Jack Nesbit continued where he left off yesterday and rolled a 1214 which saw him move up the all events standings to 11th.  Gary Ellis also finished strongly to roll 1192 but the rest of us just couldn’t get it going today, although Brad Mervish hit 1055 which was a 90 pin improvement from yesterday so well done to him.

The standard again was very high with USA1 just pipping Sweden1 to the gold medal in the last game.  The bronze was taken by the mixed team from USA and Switzerland and they had an overall average of 206.5.

We are looking forward to a nice Shabbat dinner this evening and a day off from bowling tomorrow so we can explore the sights of Vienna before re-focusing for the Trios on Sunday.

Doubles scores

GB1

Gary Ellis  167 166 225 214 197 223

Ian Davis  188 169 175 180 213 199

Overall total 2316  Position 5th

GB2

Darren Sassienie 181 152 171 164 193 191

Jack Nesbit 194 212 239 223 182 164

Overall total 2266  Position 6th

GB3

Brad Mervish 200 176 158 147 161 213

Richard Kneip 151 213 163 187 177 175

Overall total 2121  Position 8th

 

All Events Standings after doubles (top 14 qualify for the Masters)

Gary Ellis 2407    7th

Ian Davis  2398   9th

Jack Nesbit  2374  11th

Darren Sassienie  2267  13th

Richard Kneip  2175  15th

Brad Mervish  2020  16th

  

 

7th July – Silver for GB in the Singles!

We have had a good first day of competition here in Vienna which was rounded off with me taking the silver medal by 12 pins from our old friend Alain Zlayet from Belgium.  The winner of the gold medal was Nathan Steiner from Sweden who averaged 257!!!  He last competed in the 2001 Maccabiah and has more recently been playing for the Swedish national team so he is certainly the one to catch.

The day started off with Patrik Goldberg from Sweden rolling his first ever 300 game and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.  Some of you will know Patrik as he has actually taken part in our own Maccabi tournament for the last 2 years.

The scores overall were pretty high with 10 of the 21 male bowlers averaging over 200 and I’m sure this will continue through the rest of the tournament as the lane conditions are very good.

It has been a very positive start for Team GB and I am confident that we are in good shape for the remaining events.

Here are our individual scores from today

Ian Davis  247  194  216  224  214  179 – Total 1274  Position 2nd

Darren Sassienie  215  174  176  177  248  225 – Total 1215  Position 8th=

Gary Ellis  245  164  172  212  185  237 – Total 1215  Position 8th=

Jack Nesbit  138  156  208  225  214  219 – Total 1160  Position 12th

Richard Kneip  178  192  182  221  166  170 – Total 1109  Position 14th

Brad Mervish  152  171  139  172  178  153 – Total 965  Position 16th

Roll on the Doubles tomorrow!

 

6th July – All arrived safely

Team GB arrived en masse in to Vienna during the course of Tuesday.  It was a long day, particularly for the northern contingent, and a 2 hour delay in leaving Gatwick didn’t help.

I had to dash to the technical meeting via taxi from the airport but it was good to see some familiar faces from Belgium, Sweden and USA.

We’re off for practice this morning and then looking forward to the opening ceremony in the Rathausplatz this evening, which should be a special experience.

The competition schedule is as follows

Thursday 7th July – Singles

Friday 8th July – Doubles

Sunday 10th July – Trios

Monday 1th July  – Team

Tuesday 12th July – Masters

The field isn’t quite as big as Rome but the quality of the players is very good so it should be a really good competition.

Look out for the Singles results tomorrow evening.