Uganda women earn first gold at Beach Woodball World Cup

National player Nabaggala lines up her shot, strikes and heaves a sigh of relief after successfully scoring through the gate at Spennah Beach, Entebbe yesterday. PHOTOS BY ISMAIL KEZAALA

ENTEBBE- Uganda have won the first medal awarded at the second Beach Woodball World Cup, winning the women team gold ahead of defending champions Taiwan.

The biennial event started on Tuesday with the stroke competition before yesterday’s second round games and the fairway competition.

Although Chinese Taipei set the bar high yesterday, the quadruple of Sandra Nabaggala, Denise Nanjeru, Joyce Nalubega and Joan Mukoova, were in the top seven to combine for gold. The only foreign players among them were Chinese Taipei’s Zhou Pei-Qi, who is on top of the leaderboard, Hong Kong’s Lam Ka Man (fourth) and Lin Wan-Yu of Chinese Taipei (sixth) ahead of today’s final round.
The top 12 players will play in the final.

Nabaggala, who was a second runner-up to Miss Jinja beauty pageant in 2018, won bronze at the 2017 beach world event in Indonesia, maintained her strong position.

She scored a uniform 22 strokes on both days to remain as Uganda’s highest ranked player in the second place.
But the Ugandan men ceded the first round advantage to defending champions Chinese Taipei after Wang Qi-An and Lee Cheng Han replaced them in the top places displacing Bridge Byamukama, Timothy Suuna and Joel Adupa, who took the opening day lead. Qi-An and Cheng stroked 17 times over six gates to overtake the Ugandan trio.

Byamukama maintained 20 strokes like he did on Tuesday although Suuna dropped a further four strokes from Tuesdays 20 to slip into third place. Adupa stroked 25 times to go fifth. There are nine finals on the closing day of the World Cup programme as well as the Uganda International that teed off yesterday.

BEACH WOODBALL WC
SELECTED RESULTS
Women’s singles
*Zhou Pei-Qi - C. Taipei (21, 20)
*Sandra Nabaggala - Uga (22, 22)
*Denise Nanjeru - Uga (25, 22)
*Lam Ka Man - Hong Kong (26, 22)
*Joyce Nalubega - Uga (26, 23)
*7. Joan Mukoova - Uga (27, 24)
*10. Charity Nagaba - Uga (26, 27)
Men’s singles
*Wang Qi-An - C. Taipei (22, 17)
*Lee Cheng Han - C. Taipei (23, 17)
*Bridge Byamukama - Uga (20, 20)
*Timothy Suuna - Uga (20, 24)
*Joel Adupa - Uga (20, 25)
*6. Thomas Kedi - Uga (24, 22)
*10. Geoffrey Towongo - Uga (23, 25)

THE NATIONS
1. Burundi
2. China
3. Chinese Taipei (defending champions)
4. Eritrea
5. Hong Kong
6. China
7. India
8. Japan
9. Kenya
10. Korea
11. Malaysia
12. Rwanda
13. Singapore
14. South Sudan 15. Tanzania
16. Uganda.