EWC 2008 - Team short oil

We had a good day on the short, no huge games but we were steady. The line up was:

Jenny
Jemma
JoJo
Lisa
Me

We shot 3175 for the 3 games which puts us in 3rd place over night. Denmark took the lead in our squad and the following squad saw Sweden set a new European championship record of 1207 for their middle game and 3331 for 3 games.

I'm writing this from the bus on the way to the bowling centre with the girls. We will face the long oil today for a further 3 games, we are all feeling confident as we sorted out a lot of stuff for the long in the trios.

I'll keep you posted!

Zara

www.zaraglover.com

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

EWC 2008 - Trios Long Oil

Well we picked up quite a few pins on the long oil after our nightmare on the short. As we were no where near a medal position we all tried a few things out and they worked. I took my Blast Zone down to 600 grit and played more direct to the pocket. The carry from this angle was much better. Lisa stayed out playing around board 12 at the arrows to 10 at the breakpoint, where as Jemma and myself both with 600 grit Blast Zones played approx. 15 at the arrows to 13 at break. The carry in this centre is strange. Light hits seem to work where as flush seems to leave all sorts of back row pins. Lets hope this carries on for the team event.

The other Trios team finished in 7th position, 160 off the cut in the end as the top teams had huge scores on the long oil. The top 4 go to a matchplay final to decide what colour medal they all take home. Denmark ended up going from 4th to the Gold medal position in a low scoring final game of 503 v 544 against France.

5 man team is the next event.

EWC 2008 - Trios Short Oil

I hate writing this when it's not good news, but we really struggled yesterday in the trios on the short. In practise the lanes were playing a bit tighter, but we all moved to the right and the reaction looked ok. However once we started we were getting a lot of under over reaction. I even had a frame with a double gutter and I thought both shots were good! they were both further in than shots that struck in the doubles. It felt like the gutters weren't hooking which makes a short pattern pretty tough! We finished pretty low down the field and have a mountain to clime today! The other Trios team did excellent, they finished in 7th place only about 60 behind the cut for top 4 at the half way stage. Jemma, Lisa and I have come down to cheerlead today as the first squad on was in the afternoon we all had a few extra hours sleep this morning.

We had a lovely afternoon and evening yesterday, we decided we needed to get away from all the bowling. So we had a real girlie time, we all went clothes shopping, then to see Sex and the City and the cinema and then a nice meal afterwards. It was a really relaxing time and just what the doctor ordered.

The girls are half way through their first game and doing well, so I'm going to stop writing and concentrate on cheering louder!!!

Cross all your fingers and toes they keep going!!!

EWC 2008 - Doubles Long Oil

Lisa and I relaxed in the sun before our second block of doubles.

Today we played the long pattern and it felt totally different to official practise. The lanes played a lot tighter. I started off with my Thunder Zone and it looked excellent in practise and then for the first 5 frames then it started going a bit long and leaving flat 10 pins. In the feel ball I threw my Blast Zone and it looked better. I threw my Thunder Zone for the first frame on the next pair though just to see if they were any different and it looked really good and struck so I stuck with that for the second game. However it started going too long again so i made the change to my Blast one and moved in. The Blast looked really good on the lane but I couldn't work out the carry. I got it rolling earlier, then later, moved right then left. The reaction looked so close to being right I was hesitent to make any big changes and Lisa was doing well so I didn't want to risk having a low game as we were doing ok for the top 4. However with two games to go we needed a couple of good games. I made the move in and increased my axis tilt and it worked, but I didn't have much room for any mistakes. Lisa's ball reaction was all or nothing, when it was right it carried when it was wrong it was a split. Unfortunately we finished 14 pins short of the top 4 :(

Neither of us were aware of what pinfall was required to make it but we were aware we were close. In hindsight we did the best we could and didn't make many mistakes. We have learnt what works and doesn't now on the two patterns so hopefully the scores will reflect!

The Trios Teams are as follows:

Team 1
Jenny Billingham
Nicki Ainge
JoJo Allsebrook

Team 2
Jemma Smith
Lisa John
Zara Glover

Team 1 bowl at 9am tomorrow on the short oil and we play at 12:30 also on the short.

EWC 2008 - Doubles Short Oil

(L-R: Me, Nicki Ainge, Jo Allsebrook, Lisa John, Jemma Smith & Jenny Billingham)

We have all bowled the first half of our doubles event now. The doubles is a 12 game event consisting of 6 games short oil and 6 games long oil. Jenny and Nicki started first, then Jemma and JoJo with Lisa and I (the old ladies!!!) playing in the last squad.

We all brought 8 balls with us, but were only allowed to register 6.

I decided on the following equipment:

Short Oil
Ultra Zone - pin below my middle finger so the ball is drilled with negative weight to reduce the reaction.
Twisted Fury - 6 1/2 " pin up.

Long Oil
Thunder Zone - pin below my ring finger
Blast Zone - 4 " pin below
Vapor Zone - pin above my ring finger and the mass bias kicked out 45 degrees


Lisa and I bowled on the short today and we played really well! It was funny as we were starting Lisa had been striking the whole of practise and had an amazing reaction, I had been struggling. I found an OK reaction playing with my Ultra Zone up board 5 at the arrows towards the end of practise, but not great. After 3 frames it switched and Lisa's ball started doing wierd things and mine started striking! After Lisa got lined up again we didn't look back finishing 293 over for the 6 games. This put us in second place so far, first place is Helen Johnsson and Nina Flack (my X-Calibur team mate!) Helen had an enormous 1546! The pairing set a new European record for 6 games of 2897 (241 Ave).

Jenny and Nicki have finished their doubles now as they had their second block on the long oil this afternoon. They both struggled with carry and a few splits, but bowled well on the whole.

JoJo and Jemma have gone to bed now as they have a very early wakeup call in the morning to get down the bowl at 8am. Lisa and I bowl the long oil in the afternoon then their is matchplay finals for the top four teams to decide what colour medals they will all receive.

Cross all your finers and toes!!!

I will let you know how it goes.

ZG

EWC 2008

I've arrived in Denmark! Had an interesting journey, leaving home at 4am on Thursday morning to meet at gatwick at 6. Our flight was a short one of 90mins. We arrived in Billund and then the adventure started. As all the countries were coming into different airports the tournament had only organised pick ups from the train station in Odense so we had to get there by public transport. First mode was a bus for about 40mins, then a train which was so busy we had to stand with our cases in the aisle. I was so glad our balls had been driven over by van, we would not have managed with all our balls!

We finally arrived at Odense and were picked up and taken to the hotel. We decided to go to the bowl to have a look and some of us wanted to bowl a little, just to get used to the centre. I had drilled 2 new balls at the last minute so wanted to bowl with them. When we got to the centre the lanes had been dressed with the tournament patterns. We bowled for about and hour then had some dinner and went back to the hotel to get some rest ready for official practise.

Practise went really well for all of us. Due to the training camps we have had this year we are all far more prepared for this tournament than any other previously. We really benefitted from the practise time due to the skills we had learnt on the camps.

The doubles pairings are Jenny and Nicki in squad 1, Jemma and Jo in 2 and Lisa and I in 3.

I will let you know how the pairings finished up in the next post!

Zara

www.zaraglover.com