Youth versus experience in the final of the 2010 Catalonia Open, but both contestants for the laurels were spring chicken. Dominic Barrett, 24, from Frinton-on-Sea, England advanced to the title match by defeating Bogota, Colombia’s Luz Adriana Leal, 287 – 201, including her eight pin bonus, starting with a spare, then stringing ten strikes and [...]

SEMI FINAL – 28-02-2010 After the hussle and bussle of the three sessions today, the top three positions for tonight’s stepladder final have now been decided. Number one seed is young Thomas Larsen from Odense, Denmark. He continued his enjoyable strikefest trhough the day, posting 947 over the final four games, to total 2570 as [...]

Champion, €6,000: THOMAS LARSEN, Denmark 2nd, 3,000: Dominic Barrett, England 3rd, €2,000: Lusz Adriana Leal, Colombia 4th, €1,100: Yoan Alix, France 5th – 10th, €1,000 each: 5. Paul Moor, England; 6. Clara guerrero, Colombia; 7. Tore Torgersen, Norway; 8. Gery Verbruggen, Belgium; 9. Jesper Agerbo, Denmark; 10. Mathias Arup, Sweden. 11th – 20th, €800 each: [...]

Thomas Larsen of Odense, Denmark came to the fore once again, leading the top 24 after a further four games with 942, including a high of 290 in the second. “I left a ringing 10-pin in the first frame of that game, but then struck out,” he told us. “I always do well in Barcelona, [...]

After a grueling through the night flight from Dubai after winning around €12,000 in the Dubai International, via Frankfurt, arriving in Barcelona early Saturday morning, Osku Palermaa of Finland rushed to Bowling Pedralbes and spent Saturday bowling three squads. Not satisfied with the results of the first two, he notched victory in the final squad [...]

The penultimate squad, full to the brim, had the 28 players trying their hardest to either improve their positions above the cut or to get into the qualifying bunch before it is far too late. Germany’s Patricia Luoto, now married to Mika Luoto and living in Finland  settled the issue by leading the squad with [...]

A nice surprise for Frenchman Mathias Sarmadi, 30, from Tours as bowling his heart out competing in Barcelona for the first time, he amazed even himself by being the leader of Squad 10, emulating the feat of fellow countryman Yoan Alix earlier in the week. He now sits in second place overall behind Verbruggen. He [...]

One Saturday squad down, three to go. Now is the time for those out in the wilderness to try to grab one of the places in tomorrow’s finale. The 12 squad winners automatically advance and they will be joined by qualifiers 1-30 and the top six women not among the qualifiers, resulting in a field [...]

Martin Paulsson from Sweden became the eighth squad leader and won his place into Sunday’s final rounds with 1307 in Friday night’s final session. Just four more qualifying squads to take place through Saturday and then the action moves into the new format. Thankfully, despite all the hassles of the French air traffic strikes the [...]

‘My kingdom for some strings of strikes’ must be the heartfelt cry of many of Europe’s top bowlers as they try, mostly in vain, to get near Luz Adriana Leal’s 1366, the tournament lead. Squad 7 just finished and king of that hill came to be 18-year-old Anders Lousdal from Middelfart, Denmark. He came home [...]