Cabous and Diana singles champs

Rudi Bowe

Cabous Olivier from Namib Park Bowling Club in Walvis Bay and Diana Viljoen from Rossmund Bowling Club booked their places for the 2019 Singles World Champion of Champions to be held in Adelaide in South Australia in November 2019.

The two lawn bowls players won the men’s and ladies’ sections respectively at the annual Namibian Closed Singles Bowling Championships that was held for the first time at Namib Park Bowling Club in Walvis Bay.

The Singles World Champion of Champions was held for the first time in 2003 with Namibian Douw Calitz as the winner. Since then no Namibian has won the title. This will be the second time that Cabous will play in the event as he played in 2017 for the first time and ended eight.

Singles World Champion of Champions is an event where only for the winners of all the countries that are affiliated with the World Body can participate in. Last year the best single bowlers from 35 countries participated in the event.

This is the first time this tournament was hosted at the coast and it proved to be a great success. The President of Namib Park Bowling Club, Dave Gibbons said that the tournament was well organized, especially as the Competitions secretary had to come from Windhoek. “The greens played well, which prove that Walvis Bay can, and has the greens to, offer events like this,” he said.

He thanked the green keeper, Kobus van Mollendorff, for his hard work in this regard. He also commented that the quality of the bowls was good and, because it was hosted at the coast, it gave players who never enter this tournament when it is played in Windhoek, the chance to play this format.

The nineteen men players that entered were divided in to four groups with the group winners play the quarter finals. The four quarter final winners played the semi-finals and the winner the final.

The men’s final was contested between Cabous Olivier and Schalk van Wyk from Omeya Bowling Club in Windhoek. Cabous lost the first set 4-7 and he won the second set 10-3 to send the game in to a third tie break set. Cabous won the tie break set 3-0 and thus won the game to be crowned as the champion.

The Ladies’ tournament was played as a round robin in two sections, with five players in a section. The winners and runners-up of the two sections then met each other in the semi-finals and the winners of the semi-finals advanced to the final.

Diana Viljoen played Henriette Partridge in the one semi-final and Elzaan de Vries had to contend with Amanda Steenkamp.

Both Viljoen and Steenkamp were victorious in their semi-final matches but Viljoen was a formidable opponent in the final. She overwhelmed Steenkamp in the first set by winning it 13 shots to 2. Steenkamp made a slight comeback in the second set and tied it 6-all, which meant that Viljoen won the game.

Cabous is a student in the North West Province in South Africa where he plays for the province under Rudi Jacobs the South African National Bowls team coach. He won a few tournaments in South Africa. In February 2019 Cabous will participate in the under 25 World Junior Bowls Championships where he ended third this year and in May 2019 he will be playing at the Atlantic Championships in Cardiff, Wales to qualify for the 2020 World Bowls Cup.