Shellharbour Tenpin Bowl's Sam Cooley is on top of the world - well, almost - after a tremendous performance at the World Tenpin Bowls Championship held at the Khalifa International Bowling Centre in Abu Dhabi late last year.
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The 23-year-old, who has been playing tenpin bowls since the age of four and has been participating in competitive bowls, returned to Australia recently with a more-than-credible three bronze medals after an exhaustive nine-day event.
"I won my medals in the individual competition, another in the trios and a third in the overall teams - you could say I am pretty pleased," Cooley said.
"It was a huge few days. I played six games in each of the singles, doubles, trios and five-man teams, making it a pretty hectic time.
"When you think there were between 250 and 260 players in the competition to finish third in the singles is a pretty good effort and there were many players from the American Pro Leagues in the field."
His performance is the best effort by an Australian bowler in 30 years, according to Shellharbour Bowl manager, legendary Australian player and now coach, Andrew Frawley.
"Sam is a very fine bowler and a great young guy and it has been a great thrill to be so closely involved with his development over the years," Frawley said.
Having represented in each age group through to seniors, he made his way into the NSW team for the President's Shield (under-18s) via a bowl-off involving between 10 and 30 people.
"The top five go through automatically, while the coach selects the final two," Cooley said.
"I have qualified four times, while I tried out for the youth team twice and got in both times."
Qualifying for the Australian senior team came via another process.
"You attend a national training camp and also do tests, and you basically have to get 70 per cent on all these tests - the selectors then consider things like your improvement and past performances. They just want to send away the best possible team."
He said the pressure was on the squad over their two days of team competition.
"The team just didn't click on the first day and we were in 10th position, around 80 pins behind fourth, but on the second day we averaged 230 to move into the top four. Unfortunately we got bulldozed by Korea in the semi-final to finish third, which was pretty special."
Cooley now has an impressive 34 (perfect round) 300s in his career.
kiamaindependent.com.au
