The idol and the new kid on the block

BUSAN, South Korea – As a wide-eyed 13-year-old junior bowler, Rowen Jay "RJ" Bautista would watch in awe as his idol, Paeng Nepomuceno, would burn the lanes in bowling venues in Manila.

Little did he know he would find himself paired with his childhood hero and give the country its first gold medal in the men’s doubles Friday night in the 14th Asian Games here.

"Being paired with him was a dream come true, winning the gold with him is a dream of a lifetime," said Bautista, 24, a computer student back home.

He is into his first Asian Games although he has been bowling consistently with a number of impressive results since winning the silver medal in the 1996 Asian FIQ championships. He also claimed a perfect game in winning the Singapore Junior Classic in 1999.

"There were times when we would wait for him to finish and have our picture taken with him. Lahat ata ng young bowlers idol si Paeng," he said.

Bautista came up with a six-game series of 227-225-171-276-231-226 for 1356 to back up Nepomuceno who had lines of 218-279-243-213-195-205 (1358) for a team total of 2714, an Asian Games record.

They posted that score in mid-afternoon and literally sat the next two hours on pins and needles as the crack 47 other teams took a shot at it but failed.

There were some anxious moments as the tandems from Singapore and Chinese-Taipei unleashed hot four-game runs and looked par for the course but faded in the nerve-wracking closing games.

"Mabuti pa pag-nagbo-bowl ako walang nerbiyos, pag naghihintay ka ng results di ka mapalagay," said Bautista, one of the talents like Biboy Rivera, Chester King and CJ Suarez to have come out of bowling’s junior program.

Bautista remembers tagging along with his father Dondon, a good bowler himself, in bowling alleys before tinkering with the game as a teener in places like Coronado Lanes in Pasay.

With the gold secured and properly awarded in Asiad rites deep into the night, RJ called his family via a mobile phone and everybody went wild back home.

"They didn’t expect me to win but they’re all very proud of what I’ve done," he said.

The decision to pair Bautista with Nepomuceno came after the men’s singles as the coaching staff agreed to put the two left-handed together after the conditions of the lanes.

"We saw dominant shots to the left and being both lefties and because both of them were playing very well we decided to play them together and they bowled well," said head coach Johnson Cheng. — Lito A. Tacujan