The 10th edition of the MILO International Junior All-Stars is already in progress at Sunway Megalanes, Malaysia. Qualifying rounds commenced on Dec 9 and will continue until Dec 18, with the Open Masters on Dec 19.

Touted as one of the most popular Youth Tournaments in the world, this year’s tournament is expected to attract 600-700 youths from 12 countries.

Top youths aged 23 and below from Australia, Chinese Taipei, Germany, Hong Kong, Korea, Holland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, together with Malaysian youths, will pit their skills to topple the two defending Champions who happen to be Malaysia’s Sin Li Jane and Adrian Ang.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s National Elite Back-Up Squad member, Kang Bo Long, shot the tournament’s first Perfect Game on the opening night of qualifyings. The 23 yr old youth who was promoted to the Back-Up squad this year, has been bowling since he was 13 yrs old. He was the 2007 Singapore Youth Champion, 2008 Malaysian Open second runner-up, and together with teammates Rodson Tong, Kelvin Keong and Syafiq Ridhwan, won a silver medal for Malaysia at the 3rd Asian Indoor Games 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City. This is Bo Long’s first perfect game at an official tournament…although he has shot 6 perfect games during training times.

Be seeing you at the Junior All-Stars,

Jonathan

 A Happy New Year to all our readers. May 2009 prove to be an even more successful year than last year!

The 9th Milo World Junior All-Stars Bowling Championship concluded with one of my former youth bowlers successfully defending his title. This makes Adrian Ang the only ‘Boys Open’ youth bowler to have won this Championship a record 3 times! Congratulations Adrian. Also to Malaysia’s Sin Li Jane who captured the ‘Girls Open’ Championship…her first International title.

However, one bowler did stand out among the participants…Saudi Arabia’s Bader Al-Shaikh. It was a joy to watch this very talented bowler bowl an 816 qualifying score. Speaking to him later, Ivy discovered that his highest 3-game series was actually 851 (278-300-273) at a tournament in Saudi Arabia.

When pressed on how he was able to achieve such impressive scores, he gave credit to his former English Coach, Mario Joseph, who was in Saudi on a 3-yr contract.

Bader Al-Shaikh started bowling at the tender age of 10 years. It became a passion that saw him practising between 5-6 hrs daily (seven days a week) during his first 6 yrs into bowling. So when his English Coach appeared on the scene, he was able to scale new heights in his bowling career.

Bader achieved his first perfect game at the age of 14 yrs and has a whopping 24 perfect games (300) to his credit today…aged 21. He also won 2 golds at the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, capturing the All Events gold and the Doubles gold with his 18 yrs’ old brother, Hassan, and a host of other titles.

Although bowling is his passion, Bader has decided that studies must also come first. He has been residing in Brisbane, Australia for the past 3 mths to further his studies on Finance.

Bader has been to Malaysia 3 times and says he’s happy to be back again as Malaysia is one of his favorite countries to visit…’so amazing’…so he says!

You can find more information on him here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bader-AL-alshaikh/17893255677

A small tip here…most Champion bowlers, or should I say ‘every’ Champion started out by bowling 7 days-a-week! No short cuts here, you must clock in the appropriate number of lane time to be successful. So make your New Year resolution to clock in more training time at the bowling alley this year!

Happy bowling

Jonathan