Tokyo Paralympics semis for both Hong Kong boccia pairs after tiebreak drama
- Bronze medal shot at the very least for Hong Kong’s BC4 pairs team as they cruise into semi-finals with 100 per cent record
- Late drama in winner takes all BC3 game against Australia as it goes to tiebreak won by Tak and Ho for another medal chance
Vivian Lau Wai-yan, Leung Yuk-wing and unused team member Wong Kwan-hang started the day off with a bang as they beat the Russian Paralympic Committee 8-2 in their BC4 group B pool match at the Ariake Gymastics Centre.
The Russian team – Daria Adonina, Sergey Safin and Ivan Frolov – were level after two ends before Hong Kong scored five points in the third to pull away. Both teams added another point each in the fourth and final end.
Victory put Hong Kong in the driving seat for a place in the semi-final as they went into the evening’s final match against Thailand with a 100 per cent record that they duly kept intact.
Lau and Leung romped to a swift 5-1 win over Thailand’s Pornchok Larpyen, Ritthikrai Somsanuk and Nuanchan Phonsila to top the group and take on group A’s second place pairs Portugal in Saturday’s semi-final.
Portugal went through with two wins from four matches and a minus-11 points difference compared to 100 per cent Hong Kong’s plus-20 points difference. At worst Hong Kong will play for bronze in both the BC4 and BC3 events.
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Hong Kong’s BC3 pairs team did it the hard way. They lost their pool game against Brazil 5-3 with the South Americans dominant from the start.
Brazil’s Evelyn de Oliveira and Evan Soares da Silva raced into the lead with two points in the opening end. Hong Kong – who played the pair of Ho Yuen-kei and Tse Tak-wah throughout – got their first point in the next end but the Brazilians added another to lead 3-1 at the halfway point.
Hong Kong, watched on by the unused Liu Wing-tung, were scoreless in the third end as Brazil stretched the lead to 5-1 before pulling two points back in the final end to make the score 5-3.
Hong Kong languished in fourth place on point difference behind Brazil, Japan and Australia, with the group leaders up in the final pool match. With the top four all on two wins from three matches it was going to come down to a winner takes all match against Australia.
Hong Kong went into the must win game and took an early lead, going 1-0 up in the first end and leading 2-1 at the halfway stage.
Australia’s two points in the third end put them 3-2 ahead going into the final bowls but Hong Kong forced a tiebreak when they levelled the score at 3-3.
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In the end it was Hong Kong that went through as Tse and Ho took the tiebreak 1-0 over Australia’s Jamieson Leeson and Daniel Michel.
The semi-finals, bronze medal match and gold medal match in both events takes place on Saturday.
