A “Weekend Bowler” Choi, Jong-In Won the Korea Japan International Championship

If you see this in a movie or a soap opera, you probably say this is too much of story. However, such a dreamlike thing happened in reality.

A `weekend bowler` won the 4th Samho Korean Cup Korea Japan International Bowling Championship beating the pro top rankers of Korea and Japan and good club players as well as Korean national team players who won the silver medal at the Busan Asian Games.

The hero of the news is Mr. Choi, Jong-In (24). He won the Championship Cup by defeating a pro bowler Choi, Young-Jin (Rookie Trading) with the score of 203-182 at the Master`s Final held in Namsan Bowling Center, Busan on the 5th.

He, who works as a bowling ball technician at the Ace Bowling Center Pro Shop in Ansan, is a pure amateur. He has small physical appearance with 1m69 and 57kg, and he has absolutely no experience of any physical training during his school years

The time when Mr. Choi got related with bowling was when he was hired as an employee of the bowling club after graduating from the Andong Technical High School in Gyongbuk five years ago. At first, all he played was just few tries during nighttime when there were not many customers there.

With the ability that he accumulated like this, he was considered as `the strong man` in the neighborhood. So he challenged the 7th Professional Try-out with aspiring dream, but failed at the 1st test. He could not even entered this year`s 8th Try-out due to his wrist injury. His lone winning career is the second place at the National Living Sports Championship.

However, Mr. Choi`s challenge has never stopped. He heard the news that the Samho Korean Cup Championship opened its door to amateurs from this year, so he participated on the qualifying match held in Daesung Bowling Club in Suji, Yongin, Gyonggi and got the ticket to enter with the second place position.

His dreamlike drama started from there. After passing the qualifying tournament with ease in the first day of the Championship on the 2nd, he created an extraordinary thing by making the Best 5 Masters with the 4th place position through the best-of-16-round- robin.

And at the Masters` games on the 5th, starting from the 4th and 5th place match to the final first and 2nd place match, he won all 4 games came from behind. A pro, Song, In-Suk (Samhyup Trading), a powerful club player, Kim, Gwang-Wook (Gwangyang City Hall), and the best pro player, Kim, Young-Pil were collapsed by his strong blast, and even the 1st place finisher of the main games, a pro, Choi, Young-Jin was defeated by big 21 points. Mr. Choi, Jong-In, who grabbed 20 million won prize money, which was more than his yearly salary, expressed his impression, “I played with a thought that I had nothing to be ashamed of although I lost,” and “I will challenge next year`s pro try-out after correcting my habit of getting up too early during release and practicing to control my emotion.”

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com