Del Rosario, Rivera place 5th in Bowling World Cup

Editor’s note: This article has been originally published in The Filipino Connection and is posted with permission from the author and the website.

MANILA, Philippines – Fifth-place finishes by Filipino bowlers Engelberto “Biboy” Rivera and Liza del Rosario at this year’s 50th Bowling World Cup were bright spots to an otherwise unremarkable year for Philippine bowling in international competitions.

Rivera ended his World Cup campaign in Wroclaw, Poland with 8,350 pinfalls after 36 games in the men’s division, while del Rosario tallied 8,048 pinfalls on the distaff side.

While the Philippines continues to remain without a Bowling World Cup  title since CJ Suarez’s title in the men’s division 11 years ago, the twin fifth-place finishes are the nth times the two landed in the top six of the World Cup.

Del Rosario almost won the World Cup by placing second in 2001 and third in 2004, then she placed sixth in 2009. Rivera, for his part, placed third in 2010 and fifth in 2011.

Both keglers reached the final eight after a 28-game elimination round in which the top eight bowlers vied for the title the whole of Nov. 9. Scores after 28 games were accumulated going into the last eight games, in which bowlers faced each other and all bowlers – to determine the top three placers who made it to the stepladder finals – will bowl together for one final game.

Del Rosario won three matches in the Top 8 round while Rivera won four.

Their feats made up for a forgettable stint for the Philippine bowling team at the recent 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. Tipped to win at least a medal for the Philippine delegation, the country’s bowlers failed to win any medal.

That includes both del Rosario and Rivera, the latter a gold medalist at the 2010 Asiad in Guangzhou, China. Both bowlers did not even reach the top 16 bowlers who qualified for the Master’s events – said to be the most prestigious event in any bowling competition – in Incheon.

In updated rankings of the continent’s top bowlers, not even del Rosario and Rivera are in Asia’s top 50 bowlers. Rankings are determined by bowlers’ performances in accredited Asian and international competitions.

The Philippines has made a mark in world bowling courtesy of the sport’s most accomplished bowler, four-time World Cup champion Rafael “Paeng” Nepomuceno. Suarez, who won the World Cup in the 2003 edition in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, became the second Filipino men’s World Cup titlist.

Filipinas Lita del Rosario (1978) and Olivia “Bong Coo” Garcia (1979) had won the World Cup for the country. Another bowler, Arianne Cerdena, made a mark for the sport by winning the gold medal at the 1998 Seoul Olympic Games when bowling was made an exhibition sport.

Apart from some top eight finishes by Filipino bowlers – including del Rosario and Rivera – in some editions of the World Cup, Rivera won the master’s event gold medal at the 2006 World Tenpin Bowling Championships (organized by the World Tenpin Bowling Association). Del Rosario, for her part, had won a bronze medal at the 2009 World Games and was part of the Philippine trios team  that struck gold at the 2003 World Tenpin Championships (together with Liza Clutario and Cecilia Yap).

Otherwise, Filipinos landing in remarkable world-level finishes in the past ten years has been less frequent compared to Asian neighbors. (The annual World Cup is organized by the Federation Internationale des Quilleurs or the FIQ).

Asian bowling is now marked by the rise of bowlers from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, there are hints that the Philippine Bowling Congress, the national sports association for bowling, is in a leadership crisis after the NSA’s founder, Ernesto “Toti” Lopa, died last year.

On Oct. 25, a week before the World Cup started on Nov. 1, del Rosario posted two tweets on her Twitter account showing her dismay at the PBC. “Where’s the command responsibility?” del Rosario (using the Twitter handle @lizadelro) wrote. Shout out to the [Republic of the Philippines] bowling team president! #leadershipfail #sisihan [finger-pointing] #isipisip [think first] #thinkbeforeyoutalk.”

Her second tweet wrote: “The failure of the people can also be attributed to the leadership failure and all the mess created in between” [sic].

Clara Guerrero of Colombia and Chris Barnes of the United States won this year’s Bowling World Cup titles by beating their Malaysian and German opponents in the best-of-three finals.

This year’s QubicaAMF World Cup had 84 countries in the men’s division and 70 country-entrants in the women’s side. Del Rosario and Rivera were coached by former national women’s team mainstay Jojo Canare. (A reader, with mobile number +639177167216, contributed reporting.)