The lefty (left, and featured photo), who won the 22nd Bowling World Cup in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1986, averaged 255 for six games en route to win the qualifying with 1530 total Saturday evening at Lucky Bowl Veitvet in Oslo.

Starting the 23rd and last squad in 82nd place, 40 places and 75 pins below the cutline, Ljung pened with a near-perfect 299 game (3-pin) and added 268, 238 and back-to-back 258 before he closed with 209 on the tricky lane pair 23 & 24, as Peter said, to overtake his compatriot Mattias Wetterberg right), who led since squad 9 with 1514, by 16 pins.

Ljung out averaged his nearest competitors in this squad, Swedish youth national team member Alida Molander and Finnish veteran Mika Oksanen by more than 30 pins.

Molander (left) used high games of 278 and 258 for 1340 and added 48 bonus pins to jump into 20th place with 1388 total.

Oksanen (right) rebounded from a 185 opening game with four games between 240 and 231, before he suffered a disastrous 164 closing game to finish with 1294, 47 pins off the pace for the cut. However, there was a happy end for Oksanen, who earned a berth in the semi-final round as he captured one of the four extra spots for bowlers age 50 and over.

Ljung leads 60 players out of a 218-player field from Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Sweden and the host country Norway into the finals on Saturday and Sunday.

The top 8 featuring five bowlers from Sweden and one each from Denmark, Finland and Sweden, include three out of four players, who achieved perfection in this tournament, Eric Sjöberg of Sweden (3rd, 1497), Niko Oksanen (left) of Finland (6th, 1466) and Gaëtan Mouveroux of France (7th, 1445). The fourth, Santtu Tahvanainen (right) of Finland, made the cut in 25th place with 1375.

Also among the top 8 was the best of 53 women (fifth highest number in the 2018 European Bowling Tour season), Mai Ginge Jensen (left) of Denmark (4th, 1471, including 48 bonus pins) and Swedes Benjamin Jonsson (5th, 1466) and Mikael Roos (8th, 1444).

As the best woman in qualifying, Jensen earned a 5.000 Norwegian Kronor bonus. Anneli Blomqvist of Sweden (12th, 1415) received 3.000 NOK for second place and Åse Jacobsen (right) of Norway (13th, 1409) got 2.000 NOK for third place.

Ljung and the seven other finishers in the top eight received four byes for the semi-finals and the first three rounds of the finals. Another 20 players earned from one to three byes.

The cutoff numbers are as follows:
Positions 1-8 earn four byes – 8th Mikael Roos, Sweden, 1444 (240.67)
Positions 9-16 earn three byes – 16th Robin Persson, Sweden, 1394 (232.33)
Positions 17-24 earn two byes – 24th Jonas Dammen, Norway, 1382 (230.33)
Positions 25-28 earn one bye – 28th Robert Lindberg, Norway, 1366 (227.67)

Total 32 players, including qualifiers 29-42 plus two players from squads 1-7, four women, four juniors, four seniors and two players each from the Turbo 1 and 2 list (highest score in games 5 and 6), advance to six-game semi-final round, which will be contested Saturday night starting at 9 p.m. CEST).

Christel Carlsson (left) of Sweden took the 42nd and last place with 1341 and an average of 222.17. The cut raised by 24 pins compared to last year.

The Norwegian Open 2018 by Brunswick is the 12th and final stop of the 2018 European Bowling Tour and the second EBT “Bronze” tournament this season. The tournament, which will be contested Oct. 5-14 at 26-lane Lucky Bowl Veitvet in Norway’s capital city of Oslo, will decide the outcome of the 2018 EBT men’s and women’s point rankings.

Bowlingdigital will provide onsite coverage from Lucky Bowl Veitvet featuring stories, photos and results after each round commencing Thursday, October 11, all the way through to the finals, which will be completed Sunday, October 14, in the late afternoon.

The lanes will be conditioned with a Brunswick sport pattern with medium difficulty and 22.00 ml volume oil total.

The NO 2018 offers total prize money of 275.000 Norwegian Kronor (currently 28.900 Euro) with 45.000 NOK (approx. 4.730 Euro) going to the winner and a last-to-cash payout of 2.000 Kronor or 210 Euro for 60th place. The top 3 women after qualifying received 5.000 NOK, 3.000 NOK and 2.000 NOK bonuses, respectively.

Qualifying at the Norwegian Open 2018 by Brunswick began Friday, Oct. 5 and concluded Saturday, Oct. 13 with the final Squad 23. Women receive 8 bonus pins each game throughout the entire tournament, an equality handicap provided to women in all EBT events. However, maximum score is 300.

Total 60 players will advance to the finals on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 13 & 14. The top 8 qualifiers will be seeded in Round 4, qualifiers 9-16 go to Round 3, qualifiers 17-24 start in Round 2 and qualifiers 25-28 begin in Round 1.

The other 32 finalists advance to Saturday’s semifinal round which begins at 9 p.m. CEST. All players bowl six games from scratch with the top 12 advancing to Round 1 starting on Sunday morning at 10 a.m.

The remaining forty players will determine the champion in five three-game rounds (rounds 1-4 starting from scratch). The field will be trimmed to 32, 24, 16, and then eight players who bowl one last three-game round with the pinfall from Round 4 being carried forward.

The player with the highest six-game total will win the title, the 45.000 NOK top prize and 100 EBT ranking points (men and women in separate rankings).

For more information on the Norwegian Open by Brunswick and a list of the previous winners, please read our Tournament Preview.

The 2018 European Bowling Tour features 12 tournaments in 10 countries including two “platinum”, two “gold”, three “silver”, two “bronze” and three “satellite” events, which offer total prize fund of roughly 625.000 Euro.

The top 50 men and the top 50 women in each event receive ranking points. Those points will be tabulated throughout the season to determine the top 8 men and top 8 women, who will be eligible to compete in the 12th EBT Masters July 8, 2019 at Bowling Chamartín in Madrid, Spain.

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Norwegian Open 2018 by Brunswick – Final Qualifying Standings after Squad 23

Total 60 players advance, including the top 42 players qualifiers, plus two players from squads 1-7 (places 43 & 44), four women (places 45-48), four juniors (places 49-52), four seniors (places 53-56) and two players each from the Turbo 1 and 2 list (places 57-60).

300 games (4) – Eric Sjøberg, Niko Oksanen, Gaëtan Mouveroux, Santtu Tahvanainen.