Bolts, an Indian Paintball team emerged winners at the UAE Open 2014, making them the first team from India to win the category overseas. Team Bolts won the trophy in Division 2 of UAE Open 2014, which was held on the 2nd and 3rd of May in Sharjah, UAE. This victory brings pride and glory to the sport in India and also makes it the first International tournament win overseas. Paintball is recently highlighted in the sporting radar in India. Thus it can be hoped that this win can garner more popularity to the sport in the nation.
After having recently played at the India Open, players were all in high spirits and decided to participate in UAE. "We greatly appreciate and thank the organisers in UAE, families, friends for all the support on and off the field that helped us achieve our dream. We also thank all teams at the tournament for putting up a good show with the high level of competency and also congratulate Storm team 6 for putting up a good fight at the finals. Even with those high spirits and practiced moves, though, we felt speechless after the win. If we can still thank somebody, we like to mention all the ref’s for the amazing job in the heat and rain and gave us their best." says the players of the team.
The team was led by Arun Kumar (captain), Melwyn Richard, Pramod Kuruvilla, Vinayak Pradeep, Alias Poul and Joel Rodrigues (mentor and coach). They played 16 matches, out of which they won 14 and the rest ended up being draw.
