10 Dec - Remy's late, late silver medal

It was the final day of the bowling competition in Doha, and once again I was assigned to bowling with Ghandi. Judging from Team Sinapore’s yesterday’s performance, we reckoned that there would not be any surprise medals here.

On the way to the Qatar Bowling Centre, there were helicopters hovering in the air. They were for the TV coverage of the Men’s marathon event this morning. Here’s another example of how money really makes the world goes round. They had several helicopters doing shifts as one went for fuel and the other takes over.

Valerie Teo finished 6th with Jennifer Tan at 12th after second block of the Women’s Masters event. Stayed a while to watch Remy and Yuwen bowled, but left soon after to get my script and story out in time. The idea was to leave the end open while waiting for the results.

It was Simon’s last day with us. He would fly home after tonight’s show. He got Prem and Jusri to buy some nuts for him to bring back. And had brought his luggage to the IBC.

Back at the IBC, we watched Remy battled back from the last to third. Alvin said if he wins the 2nd/3rd placing game, we would go live for bowling. This meant that I couldn’t complete my story. It was some nail-biting moments in the IBC. Remy was bowling against a Korean, and a Korean TV station was opposite us. Each time Remy has a strike, we would cheer while the “Ahhs…” could be heard next door, and the opposite would happen when the Korean bowler had a strike. Remy overcame all odds to battle his way to the 1st/2nd placing game.

Once again, JB was held up at the sepak takraw venue. Biao shu had to do the RVO, while he voiced my bowling story sentence by sentence. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Time is running out for me as I tried to finish up my bowling story in vain. I still have the supers for TAG to type. Simon came up with the solution for me. Leave the end of the story open and upsot the commentary for the results. Alvin bought this idea and I completed the final line.

Everybody in the room was rooting for Remy to go on. At one stage, he could have caught up. But the gold medal was not meant to be his, and he had to settle for silver. Still, it was very adrenaline pumping to be in this situation with Alvin and Simon trying to catch the action back to live feed rather than rely on the EVS.

During dinner that night, we bombarded Biao Shu with questions. We were all still high from Remy’s fiasco. Alvin asked him how come he didn’t fork out $$ for someone to bunk in with him in the apartment. Afterall, he has had the WHOLE apartment to himself while Alvin was gone. Not sure if it was the food, the adrenaline or the yearning for mama, he let slip that mama went to Bangkok as he was here in Doha. In Biao shu’s words “People boring, so go Bangkok. Three weeks leh.” We all roared with laughter. Sensing this was the opening not to be missed, we asked him when will we hear wedding bells, has he set the date, why didn’t he ask mama to come to Doha instead?

I asked him if he does his own laundry at home or mama do. He said he does his own, and to cut the story short, he said there is a possibility that he would do ironing for mama. Then Wendy taught him that no matter how bad mama’s cooking is, he must say nice, and has to finish up all the food. After we said goodbye to Simon and thank him for all the help he has given. He said to book him early next time, meaning Thailand next year.

Later in the bus, Biao Shu was trapped by Wendy and I as we continued our bombardment on him. Biao Shu, what you call mama? Biao Shu, what mama call you? Hahaha!