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The Bahrain National Bowling team was on a roll at the GCC Women’s Games in Kuwait, sweeping through the competition clinching gold at every turn and with every throw.
The squad made up of Nadia Al Awadhi, Noora Sultan, Layla Janahi and Reem Sultan, battled bowlers from Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia in the Singles, Doubles, Team, All Events and Masters.
The ladies put on an impressive performance with Nadia, a 36-year-old mother of two boys who work as an in-house legal and regulatory lawyer in the field of telecommunications, taking home five gold medals alongside her doubles partner Noora, who notched three silver herself.
“I thankfully managed to win the Singles event, the Masters event and the All Events – the winner of the latter being the person with the highest combined score from the Singles, Doubles and Team events,” said Al Awadhi who won a gold medal as the Women’s Masters Champion in the Arab Bowling Championship in Egypt earlier this year as well as silver in the Women’s Doubles and a bronze in the Women’s Team event alongside Noora, Reem and Layla.
“My teammate and doubles partner, Noora was my main competitor of the tournament with each of the solo gold medals being fought up to the last minute of each event. She also won silver in all three events so it was pretty exciting! We also won gold in the doubles event and gold in the Team event with the rest of the girls in the team.
“It feels absolutely amazing! I wasn’t sure how I would perform as I have not been able to dedicate as much time to practice and competing in the last few years as I would have liked to due to work and family commitments so this was just a wonderful outcome and gave me the push I needed to continue competing moving forward.”
The ladies are delighted with the victories, especially as they hope it will inspire other Bahraini women and girls to join in and try something new to continue to grow the sport of bowling in the kingdom.
Al Awadhi, who started playing for the national team when she was 14, added: “I really hope this last win and the coverage that we have kindly been provided by all the papers and social media accounts helps some way towards creating more awareness for women in the sport of bowling.
“We had fantastic support from the Bahrain Olympic Committee board member, chairwoman of women’s sports committee and the new member of the International Olympic Committee’s Women in Sport Commission, Shaikha Hayat bint Abdulaziz Al Khalifa.
“She truly encourages women in sports in Bahrain and for that we are so thankful. I would also like to thank the Bahrain Bowling Association for their continuous support of women in sports.”
