How one step sent Shannon Pluhowsky on her way to four gold medals


o say Team USA bowler Shannon Pluhowsky enjoyed success at the 2011 World Tenpin Bowling Association World Women’s Cham- pionships in Hong Kong would be like say- ing Earl Anthony was a decent bowler. All the 29-year-old lefty from Kettering, Ohio, did in


T


Hong Kong was become the first bowler in the history of the world championships to earn four gold med- als. She stood on the medal stand’s top step following doubles, trios, team and masters competition.


The exclamation point to


Pluhowsky’s week-long run was a 3-1 triumph over Singapore’s Daphne Tan in the Masters finale, in which she tossed 300 and 299. Given the fact Team USA’s


world championships sextet in- cluded such high-profile bowl- ers as Liz Johnson, Kelly Kulick and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, Pluhowsky might not have been the most likely candidate for a dominating individual performance. Not that she was surprised,


mind you. “I wouldn’t say I was surprised


by how well I did,” Pluhowsky said without the slightest hint of bra- vado. “I know I can bowl well, and


12 USBOWLER OCTOBER 2011


I’ve bowled well before in major competition. I know what I’m capable of.” True, Pluhowsky, who has been


a Team USA member for a decade, has an impressive resume. She’s the only bowler to win three con- secutive U.S. Amateur titles, and won the USBC Queens crown as an amateur in 2006. Pluhowsky also has three Professional Bowlers Association Women’s Series titles to her credit, including back-to- back wins in 2009. Still, her incredible success


in Hong Kong probably seemed unlikely near the end of the team’s formal training camp at the Inter- national Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas, in July.


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