31 Aug 2012 at 23:35 | Published by: Hans | Views: 8168 | News search

Sara Karlsson concentrating for her last lane and the ace for gold  (Photo by Hans Bergström 2012)

Today was the stroke play finals in Porto. In the men’s class there was not so much excitement since all the top players continued to play well and the margins only changed slightly. Achim continued his record breaking play and now also have the world record on concrete for 5 (118) and 6 (144) rounds. With this game there were no-one able to stop Achim to win the gold medal.

Equally well and actually one shot better was Reto Sommer, Switzerland. He lost 7 strokes to Achim the first two rounds on Wednesday but after that he has played equally with Achim for the remaining 10 rounds.

Harald Erlbruch, Germany managed to get the best of his game today and could secure the bronze medal 3 strokes in front of Christian Gobetz who didn’t get his beton play to work today.

In the ladies class all the drama appeared instead. This was to become and almost unlikely afternoon when it seemed that anything could happen. Sara Karlsson stared in fourth position this morning, five shots from gold and leading Bianca Zodrow. In between on silver and bronze position were Natasja Klarenbeek and Karin Heschl. But the first double round of Sara changed the game plan for everyone. With 19-24 she took over the lead from Bianca with one stroke.

After the first eternit round in the final Bianca was up even with Sara and Natasja was 3 strokes behind. Also Germanys Anne Bollrich came from behind and was 5 strokes behind Sara and Bianca. And what a beton round it was to be. It started off with Bianca and Sara still even in the beginning after some seldom seen misses from both players. Even if they had misses they also aced so much they could still keep the chasers behind them.

But then the nightmare ending started for the two top players. Bianca ended 2-1-2-2-2-3 from lane eleven and to 16. And Sara had a 4 on lane 15 and a 3 on lane 16 missing the obstacle passing 3 times.

And at the same time Natasja played more normal. Anne Bollrich who was playing very well had a unlucky finnish by 2-2-2-1 and was waiting on the result 292 in the goal. She could herself see that with two lanes to go Natasja needed to ace both to win against her with one stroke. And Bianca and Sara was one shot in front of Natasja. Natasja started to ace lane 17.

Then Bianca failed to pass the obstacle in the right way and was left with a long putt for two. She missed that put and was now forced to ace last lane to be equal with Anne.

Then it was Saras turn. You could see quite clearly that she was very nervous but she could manage in the end and aced 17. All three players then aced 18 and Sara won gold, one stroke in front of Natasja. Biancas was left without medal this time after losing to Anne on the first sudden death course.

Tomorrow is the match play finals. The lanes to be played is decided as follows:

Eternit: 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 18
Beton: 1, 2, 5, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18

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