IT was heartache all around for the Hong Kong tenpin bowlers at the Hiroden Bowling Alley as they saw the red carpet to the medal's rostrum whisked away from under them at the last minute.
Heartache number one came in the afternoon when Franco Lau Kam-wah and Chung Him missed out in the men's doubles. More agony came when a bronze medal slipped the grasp of Catherine Che Kuk-hung and Choi Miu-chu in the women's doubles - by a mere three pins.
Cat Che, who won a gold and silver medal at the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, failed to add another one to her collection yesterday, despite being involved in a tense match where she picked up her game in the latter stages to lead a great fightback.
Having started disastrously, Cat Che and Choi trailed for most of the game. But a late flurry saw them claw their way back into medal contention as they climbed steadily up from 13th position to sixth with one game to go.
But dreams of a Hong Kong medal disappeared as Japan's Tomomi Shibata kept her nerve while teammate Naoko Sekine performed poorly. But Shibata's final round of 236 was enough to ward off the late Hong Kong challenge which finished on an overall score of 2,372, three pins behind Japan's 2,375.
'It couldn't have come any closer,' said a disappointed Cat Che afterwards, who finished way down the listings in the singles on Wednesday.