The National Games bowling competition drew to a thrilling close on Sunday at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Sports Park, with Guangxi and Jiangsu emerging as the overall champions in the men's and women's categories, respectively.

The three-day mass participation event featured intense competition across six disciplines: men's and women's singles on Friday, doubles on Saturday, all topped off with a grand finale of team-of-five events on Sunday.

The final day saw Hubei claim the gold in the men's team-of-five event, with Sichuan and Guangdong securing silver and bronze.

The SAR men’s team finished in seventh place in Sunday's event.

In the women's team-of-five competition, Jiangsu took the top spot on the podium, followed by Hubei with silver and Guangxi with bronze.

The SAR women’s team finished eighth.

The team event utilised the Baker System, where each team member bowls in rotation over a total of 18 frames to produce a single combined score.

When all points from the singles, doubles and team events were tallied, Guangxi narrowly edged out Hubei by just three points to claim the overall men's championship, with Sichuan earning the bronze. The SAR men's team placed a respectable fifth overall.

On the women's side, Jiangsu's consistent performance earned them the overall title, with Anhui and Hubei taking second and third place. The SAR women's team finished ninth overall.

Reflecting on the SAR's performance, bowler Daniel Tse said they did better than expected.

"I think compared to the individual competition, I did a lot better in the team competition. As a team, we did a lot better than expected. Though we didn't make it onto the podium, I think our results exceeded my expectations," he said.

"The atmosphere was really lively, and we had a lot of family, friends and colleagues coming to support us. It was truly a wonderful atmosphere."

His teammate from the women's side, Lee Wing-yan, highlighted the lasting impact of the competition.

"To us, this experience has been very memorable. Through this competition, we were able to rekindle the passion we had for bowling from when we were part of the SAR team. Moving forward, we will continue to train hard," she said.

"We don't know if there will be bowling at the next National Games, but we will continue to persevere in the sport we love and keep competing and developing."

The event was attended by Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Rosanna Law, on its final day.

"The overall process was smooth," she told reporters after the competition.

"There were some minor issues, like on the first day, some athletes mentioned that the...air conditioning was quite cold, and they had to keep warm. We will definitely improve on this if we host similar events in the future," she said.