Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates was the center of the bowling world December 4-15, when the best male bowlers in the sport competed in the 4th Men’s World Championships at Khalifa International Bowling Center.

The 9-day event concluded Sunday afternoon with the Masters competition and capped off with a victory banquet on the rooftop of the Aloft Hotel.

49 World Bowling Tenpin member federations participated in the event, which started as a biennial event in 2006 and is now contested every four years. The 4th edition drew 272 players, who competed for 6 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze medals in Singles, Doubles, Team of Five, All-Events and Masters.

Khalifa International Bowling Center, UAE’s national bowling facility, is located at Zayed Sports City. The venue was built for the 1999 World Championships. Nearly 1,000 spectators are able to sit and enjoy the competititon at the 40-lane center which also features two pro shops, three restaurants and a billiard room.

Click images to enlarge.

The Championships were contested on the 38 ft. Atlanta pattern and the 43 ft. Tokyo pattern, a medium and a long pattern from the World Bowling bank of patterns.

Singles and the first block of the Trios and Team events was played on Tokyo, Doubles and the second block of the Trios and Team events on Atlanta, while the Masters competition featured dual lane condition (left lane long, right lane medium oil).

It marked the second time after 1999 that Abu Dhabi and Khalifa International Bowling Center have hosted a World Championships. The 1999 World Championships drew record 600 players, 345 men and 255 women, from record 68 countries.

Video 10 – Review the highlights of the 2014 Men’s World Championships

Pos	Combined	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1.	Korea	4		4	8
2.	Canada	1		1	2
3.	Denmark	1			1
4.	United States		4	1	5
5.	UAE		1		1
(tie)	Japan		1		1
7.	Australia			3	3
8.	Finland			1	1
(tie)	Sweden			1	1
	Total	6	6	11	23

Korea (left) with Park Jongwoo, Choi Bokeum, Hong Haesol, Shin Seunghyeon, Kang Heewon and Kim Kyungmin topped the medal table at the 2014 Men’s World Championships with four gold and four bronze.

The Koreans were the lone country that won multiple titles taking the gold in Doubles, Team, All-Events and Masters. Lefty Choi Bokeum was the most winningest player with three gold and one bronze medal.

Canada and Denmark took the remaining gold medals. Canada’s Dan MacLelland (below left) started the World Championships with victory in Singles.

Danes Carsten Warming Hansen, Frederik Øhrgaard, and Thomas Larsen (right, l-r) earned the gold medal in Trios, the first-ever gold medal for Danish men at a World Championship.

Team USA, which has led the medal tally in the previous three Men’s World Championships (2006, 2008 and 2010), failed to win a gold medal and had to settle for fourth place in the medal tally with four silver and one bronze. The last time the U.S. men’s team didn’t bring home a gold medal from a World Championships was in 1999, also in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE, Japan, Australia, Finland and Sweden shared the other medals.

4th Men’s World Championships Medalists

Khalifa International Bowling Center in Abu Dhabi, UAE (December 4-15, 2014)

Singles
1. Dan MacLelland, Canada
2. Shaker Al Hassan, United Arab Emirates
3. Tommy Jones, United States and Sam Cooley, Australia

Doubles
1. Korea (Choi Bokeum, Park Jongwoo)
2. Japan (Daisuke Yoshida, Shusaku Asato)
3. Finland (Kimmo Lehtonen, Joonas Jehkinen)
and Korea (Shin Seunghyeon, Kang Heewon)

Trios
1. Denmark (Frederik Øhrgaard, Carsten Warming Hansen, Thomas Larsen)
2. United States (Mike Fagan, Sean Rash, Marshall Kent)
3. Korea (Park Jongwoo, Hong Haesol, Kim Kyungmin) and
Australia (David Porto, Sam Cooley, Jason Belmonte)

Teams
1. Korea (Park Jongwoo, Choi Bokeum, Hong Haesol, Shin Seunghyeon, Kang Heewon and Kim Kyungmin)
2. United States (Mike Fagan, Chris Barnes, Bill O’Neill, Sean Rash, Tommy Jones and Marshall Kent)
3. Sweden (Robert Andersson, Martin Paulsson, Joachim Karlsson, Jesper Svensson, Martin Larsen and Daniel Fransson) and
Australia (David Porto, Jayden Leming, Brendan Meads, Sam Cooley, Jason Belmonte and Paul White)

All-Events
1. Choi Bokeum, Korea
2. Mike Fagan, United States
3. Dan MacLelland, Canada

Masters
1. Kang Heewon, Korea
2. Mike Fagan, United States
3. Choi Bokeum, Korea and Park Jongwoo, Korea.

Three MWC scoring records have been broken during the Championships. Mike Fagan, Sean Rash and Marshall Kent, United States, improved the Trios record for six games by 43 pins to 4144 (230.22 average). The previous record (4101) was set by their teammates Chris Barnes, Bill ‘Neill and Tommy Jones in 2013.

Korea established new records for three and six games in the five-player Team event. The Koreans averaged 237.53 in the second block on the medium pattern to improve their own record set in 2008 by two pins to 3563. By finishing the Team preliminaries with 6917 (230.57 average) the Koreans shred the old record (6618, USA, 2006) by 299 pins.

The 2014 Men’s World Championships were held from December 4-15 at 40-lane Khalifa International Bowling Center in Zayed Sports City, Abu Dhabi, UAE. 272 players from 49 countries participate in the event.

The Championships, hosted by World Bowling Tenpin, the Emirates Bowling Federation and Zayed Sports City, was open to all WTBA Member Federations who are currently paid up members of World Bowling and their respective zone (PABCON, ETBF, and ABF).

Maximum six men per country competed for gold, silver and bronze medals in Singles, Doubles, Trios, five-player Teams, All-Events and Masters in the 9-day competition (Dec. 6-14).

Bowlingdigital provided on-site coverage from Khalifa International Bowling Center in Abu Dhabi including reports, photos and results starting with the Singles event all the way through to the Masters finals on Sunday, Dec. 14.

The United States Bowling Congress provided live streaming of the entire event on BowlTV. Live Scoring was available on the official Website and on the website of World Bowling

The 2014 Championships was the fourth World Championships for men only. The 2006 MWC took place in Busan, Korea (on 33 ft. Sydney and 43 ft. Tokyo pattern), and was followed by Bangkok, Thailand in 2008 (on 34 ft. Stockholm and 43 ft. Tokyo pattern) and Munich, Germany in 2010 (38 ft. Atlanta and 43 ft. Tokyo pattern).

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