More gold in the bowls

29 July 2014 - 02:03 By David Isaacson
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SWEET SUCCESS: Prince Neluonde and Pierre Breitenbach celebrate victory in their men's triples gold medal match against Northern Ireland yesterday
SWEET SUCCESS: Prince Neluonde and Pierre Breitenbach celebrate victory in their men's triples gold medal match against Northern Ireland yesterday
Image: RYAN PIERSE/GETTY IMAGES

Prince Neluonde, who started playing bowls just four years ago, was one of two novices who helped the South African men's triple to bag a Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow yesterday.

Neluonde, Pierre Breitenbach - who got a late call-up to Scotland - and veteran skip Bobby Donnelly downed Northern Ireland 19-10 to pick up Team SA's sixth gold medal of the showpiece.

It was SA's third gold in lawn bowls, and they lead the medals table in that sport.

Esmari van Reenen captured SA's first gong in the shooting, a silver in the 50m rifle prone. She will hunt another medal today in the 50m rifle three position.

The lawn bowls gold was extra special because Neluonde, from the Bryanston Sports Club, is the first black South African to represent the country in bowls.

Now he is SA's first black bowls medallist at an international competition.

Neluonde started out as a greenkeeper at the club, like his father Bennett before him, and since showing promise in his first tournament he has never looked back.

"Most of my friends say they don't want to play bowls, they want to play soccer," says Neluonde, who has since been promoted to barman. "There's no money in bowls, they say."

The 30-year-old, who doesn't drink, enjoys the psychological challenges of bowls.

"Bowls is a mind game. You have to focus, you have to visualise what you are doing. In soccer you can just kick the ball all the way."

Breitenbach, 27, flew into Glasgow only a week ago after Rudy Jacobs injured his shoulder, but he delivered arguably the most crucial bowl of the match.

The opponents had narrowed SA's lead from 14-3 to 14-10 and in the 15th end they were sitting three woods to the good.

That's when Breitenbach drew a shot, allowing SA to win it by two shots.

Donnelly, 51, the Games singles champion in Manchester 2002, had nothing but praise for Neluonde.

"Prince is a young guy and he was very inexperienced so I'm very proud of him . he just had to get into his zone and play like he has been," Donnelly said.

Unlike Neluonde, Donnelly does enjoy a tipple. Asked if the bowlers were propping up the bar at the athletes village each evening, he replied: "If you go to the bar I don't think you'll find any other sportsmen there, apart from the bowlers."

In other action yesterday, 400m star Wayde van Niekerk progressed through the heats, finishing in 46.87sec, more than two seconds slower than his personal best. His semifinal is this evening.

Boxers Ayabonga Sonjica and Tulz Mbenge won their round-of-16 bouts to advance to the quarterfinals.

Bantamweight Sonjica, who competed at the 2012 Olympics, was untroubled by Sri Lanka's Manju Wanniarachchi.

Welterweight Mbenge had to come back after losing the opening round against Kenya's Rayton Okwiri, an All Africa Games bronze medallist.

The men's hockey team were downed by Australia 6-0, with four of those coming in the field.

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