Malta girls clinch gold in doubles

After Sue Abela’s singles gold medal on the opening day of the 14th Mediterranean Challenge Cup in Barcelona on Thursday, the ladies were again in action yesterday for the doubles event, in which Malta was again represented by Abela, alongside team-mate and national youth champion Tiziana Carannante.

That pairing, combining youth as well as a wealth of experience, proved to be more than equal to the sturdy challenge from the field of 12 Mediterranean nations, topping the standings to add yet another gold to Malta’s long list of honours in this cham-pionship.

While Carannante proved to be the more consistent of the two on the day, her partner suffered an up-and-down start to the session, although Abela’s high games of 266, 212 and 236 boosted the team effort significantly for a 2,340 joint total to take first place.

It was a close-run thing, though, going down to the last frame of the sixth and final game with the duos from Greece, France and Cyprus hot on Malta’s heels.

In the end, the Greeks took silver, just 34 points behind Malta, followed by France on 2,284.

Asked for her take on the morning’s achievement, Carannante said: “I’m pleased to add gold to the two bronze medals from previous editions.

“I think that being left-handed I had a small advantage as I didn’t have to move so much as (right-handed) Sue did.”

Abela agreed with her team-mate’s views.

“It was a lot tougher on the lanes today,” she said.

“I was a bit stiffer and struggled on lanes 5 and 6 and I wasn’t quite as focused as Thursday, but we managed to win the gold... so all is good.”

In the men’s doubles event, Mark Spiteri and Neil Sullivan finished fourth, missing out on a bronze medal by just 40 pins over six games.

Spiteri’s 1,243 series, together with a 1,190 from Sullivan, gave the team a 2,433 total, just shy of third which went to Israel’s Ron Berlov and Lior Koren on 1,273.

The silver medal went to Turkey and Greece the gold.