Finns dominate 20th qualifying squad in Brunswick Euro Challenge

Reija Lunden, Mika Luoto and Pasi Uotila, all from Finland, battled it out with American Tim Mack in the 20th qualifying squad in the Brunswick Euro Challenge in Thessaloniki, Greece.

When the dust had settled, the three Finns emerged as squad leaders with Mack in fourth separated by five, nine and eight pins, resp.

Lunden (pictured above) had high games (scratch) of 254, 244 and 232 and credited her Brunswick Fury for winning this squad with 1404 six-game total (including 48 pins handicap) and an average of 226.00.

The long-time Finnish international became the fourth player and the second woman, who cracked the 1400-bar, to move into fourth place in the overall standings.

Luoto (right) used high games of 259 and 268 for a 1399 series which propelled him into fifth place.

Uotila (left) led the squad after four games with 175 over (a 200-average) but fell behind due to a 177 in game #5. A 238 final game helped him to secure the third place in the squad and seventh place overall with 1390.

The picture shows the three squad leaders, who were understandably in a good mood. It's not easy - especially for a woman - to present your bowling ball's logo if your teammates have other plans.

Mack (left) started with 224 and 257, then lost some ground behind games of 186 and 208, but closed out the set strongly with 248 and 259 to improve his previous score that included the tournament's first 300 game, to 1382, good enough for 10th place.

World Youth Championships Masters champion Mads Sandbaekken shot 1347 to overtake 19th place. Hellenic Bowling Federation president Alex Tzounis and another Finn, Sami Heinilä, were close behind with 1340. Tzounis is currently 21st and Heinilä 22nd, due to the higher last game 244 to 233 for the Greek.

Osku Palermaa, who shot the fourth perfect game of the 2007 Brunswick Euro Challenge in the 19th qualifying squad (Singaporean Lee Yu-Wen and Shaun Ng shot the two others), remained atop the leaderboard with 1430 six-game total and an average of 238.33.

With 272 from 28 countries having completed at least one qualifying block, the cutoff number for 16th place is 1352 (Paco Rodriguez, Spain) and 1268 for 52nd place (Brett Pahoulis, Greece).

Qualifying continues with one more squad on Friday and six squads on Saturday with the 27th and final qualifying squad scheduled for 8pm followed by the Desperado Squad, the ultimate one-game chance to qualify for the finals on Sunday, March 18.

Bowlingdigital covers the event live from Thessaloniki all the way through to the TV finals on Sunday.


The BEC is the fifth stop of the 2007 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Majors". Since the cancellation of the Viernheim Open, the Brunswick Euro Challenge is the richest event on the 2007 European Bowling Tour.

The total prize fund for the Open Division, Women and B-Bowlers plus special prizes is 90.000 Euro (approx. US$116,600). The Open Division champion will pocket 16.000 €.

A total of 64 players will qualify for the finals on Sunday, March 18:

• Top 52 from the qualifying
• Top 6 from the qualifying squads conducted March 9-11 not among those 52
• Top 6 from the Desperado Squad.

The top 16 qualifying leaders will bypass the first round. The other 48 finalists roll six games starting from scratch. The top 16 will join the 16 qualifying leaders in the best-of-three games single elimination finals. The highest ranked player will bowl the lowest seed, etc.

The rounds of 32, 16 and 8 trim the field from 16, to eight, then to four. The remaining four players will be seeded 1 to 4 for the stepladder finals to determine the champion in three one-game matches: No. 4 vs. No. 3, winner vs. No. 2, winner vs. No. 1.