THEY are one of the best bets to win a medal for Bermuda this summer at the Pan American Games in the Dominican Republic.

And if they do come up trumps, it will be the second medal in a major games that Bermuda's bowling team have won.

In 1998 in Malaysia, Bermuda came away with a silver medal. Now Antoine Jones, Rickai Binns, Diane Ingham and June DIll would like to go one better. And they have been training hard for these games knowing that they will be up against some of the toughest bowlers in the world - namely the Americans who are not eligible to compete in the Commonwealth Games. "The Americans will probably be the toughest at the Pan Am Games along with the Canadians," said team manager, alternate bowler and president of the Bermuda Bowling Federation, Steven Riley.

Bermuda will play men's doubles, women's doubles and then all will play their singles. "There will be 12 games in each division over a four day period - two days of singles and two days of doubles. I imagine that our strongest competition will come from the Americans, Canadians and maybe from Mexico or the Columbians," said Riley.

Bermuda's best asset going into the games will be their interantional coach Mo Pinel who is renown in the world of bowling, said Riley.

"Mo comes into the island regularly to oversee the coaching programme here. He will also be here again on June 26 and will travel to the games with us. Our youngest bowler, Rickai Binns who is at college in the US, also works with a colleague of his.

"We brought in Mo to raise the level of our game so we can compete internationally. The main thing we will find challenging at events like the Pan Am Games is the foreign conditions they have. Mo was here training us last month and he made us train in these foreign conditions," said Riley.

And those conditions include the oil patterns on the lanes which take some getting used to.

"He had different oiling patterns for us to train on - the oiling machine we have here (at the Bermuda Bowl) can give us seven or eight different patterns."

The slickness on the lane is what Bermuda will have to get used to.

"Mo works with ball technology - he makes and designs different bowling bowls. He will tell us what bowl to use and what changes we have to make. He is one of the best in the business. He creates and designs bowling balls. He will read the lane much better than what we will. He will give us a line and where we need to play. He has been here three times this year and has been great. We feel very lucky he is with us."

Riley said he approached the American coach last year to ask if he would help coach the Bermuda team. "He has also really helped myself, Antoine and Dean Lightbourne at other international events and he did that only out of the goodness of his heart. We go to the megabuck tournaments in Vegas and Atlantic City and he has helped us a great deal."

Riley said the Bermuda team will be getting a new set of equipment before the games. "He has designed and mapped out the balls for all of us - he has seen what everyone needs."

And for most of the memebrs on the team the bowling centre at the Pan Am Games is familiar.

"Three of us have bowled there before during the American Zone Championships in 1997. We all know it quite well - it is a good (centre)," he said.

While Riley said that winning a silver medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games was very big, he added: "We have a good possibility of doing something there (in the Dominican Republic)."

The team, which was picked out of the national training programme, also has much international experience. "Especially Antoine," said Riley of one of the members who won the silver medal in Malaysia.

"We always try and get to overseas tournaments - especially the men. You need to have that competitive level in order to compete on the international stage. You have to raise the bar from just competing against players in Bermuda. Your standards have to be a lot higher," he added.

The members of the team also bowl in the top leagues in Bermuda and have been bowling and training a lot more in the runup to the games. And the 20-year-old Binns bowls four or five nights a week in college on the US east coast.

The American coach Mo Pinel started his own ball company after designing some successful bowling balls for other companies.

He has gone out on his own and is manufacturing balls under the Mo-Rich brand, a company he owns with Rich Sadles.

Pinel said it is the first time a successful bowling-ball designer has launched his own ball company. Pinel, who noted that his company has been in business since 1978 with a variety of other bowling services, but branched out by becoming "a grassroots-niche ball company."

Pinel said that there isn't much to distinguish a mid-priced ball from a premium ball, but he has promised to change that because "we're about breakthrough technology".

"We feel there are things we can do with bowling balls that haven't been done before," he said.

Pinel said that a MOtion-Tuned Core was the key to his new ball. "The MOtion-Tuned Core is the first step to enhance and improve the modern bowling ball," said Pinel adding, "but there are other steps as well."

Pinel claimed his Mo-Rich company, which did consultant work for several different ball companies, was a leader in bringing out "the first successful flaring ball," as well as the enhanced mass-bias ball.

"We already have three bowling-ball patents, and we intend to expand that list to protect our intellectual property with the ground-breaking new technology that we'll be introducing."

Pinel's also has a teaching and learning system that focuses on "Execution, mental game and the physical side of things."

He works with bio-mechanical adjustments, equipment management, power and control, grip, body position and rhythm.