TOURNAMENT NOTES:
STRIKE BOWLING CLUB.........
(Pic: Keith Hale)
FRANSSON THE FRONTRUNNER
 Tony
Fransson, 27, of Gothenburg, Sweden topped the
opening squad of positions 9-68 on Sunday
morning. The ubiquitous member of the famous
Pergamon club proved the worth of the new
Brunswick Scorchin' Inferno ball by dominating
the squad with a six-game score of 1421, a set
which included a brace of 255s.
Tony was satisfied with just one re-entry this
year, achieving 1360 and 1320, much better than
his high score of 1120 in his lacklustre score
last year.
"The tournament is so much better this year with
all the squads running to time," he commented.
"Last year I remember struggling back to the
hotel at 6:00 am after playing in the Desperado
squad.
"I'm disappointed that I haven't had much to see
the local sights as I believe that Thessaloniki
is a very nice city. I've just seen the local
shopping mall. It is certainly an ideal host
city for this event and Strike Bowling Club is
great." THE SUPER SEXTET
 Jimmy
Ravez of Belgium topped the lucky six to make it
into the final rounds of the Euro Challenge with
a 241and was chased by fellow countryman Giorgio
Desimo, five pins adrift. Then came the
delightful Finnish girls, Reija Lunden and
Piritta Kantola with 236 and 235 respectively.
Scott Norton of the United States, son of the
famous lady pro bowler Virginia Norton, took
fifth spot with 234 and the qualifiers were
rounded off with the effervescent Zara Glover's
233. Zara's achievement echoed that of last year
when she also got into the main competition
through qualifying in the infamous Desperado squad.
A total of 18 nations from the original entry of
27 are still represented as competition moves
into the final day and the elimination rounds.
(pic: Martina Jakobi) GERMANY HOLD BOTH CROWNS
Jens Nickel of Bremen and Frankfurt's
Martina Beckel (pictured) give Germany the
honors with first places in men's and ladies'
divisions after squad 18 on Saturday morning.
Martina scored 1347with her first entry to
come up into 17th place overall to set the pace
for the ladies. She was third in this event last
year and won two of the European Tour stops,
Catalonia Open and Malta Open.
(Pic: Keith Hale)
SINGAPORE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Singaporean Jennifer Tan (pictured) claims
first place on the ladies' leaderboard,
22nd overall, deposing
 previous
ladies' front-runner Melissa Bellinder of the
United States to 28th place. Jennifer bowled her
best score to date with a re-entry into the
01:00 squad last night, the equivalent of around
06:00 back home.
Jennifer, just turned 28 on March 9, uses the
unique 'spinner' style of bowling ball delivery,
as does team-mate Alice Tay. She has a high
three-game series of 727 and 1382 over six
games. Her highest achievement among a treasure
trove of medals was capturing the 2002 World
Ranking Masters title in Aalborg, Denmark.
Along with Jennifer's 22nd place, Team Singapore
currently have Remy Ong placed 12th (1355), Alice
Tay 32nd (1306) and Sam Goh 34th (1304) in the
top 40.
Team Singapore are thoroughly enjoying their
visit to the Brunswick Euro Challenge and whilst
we moan about the cold, wet weather and the mist
hanging heavily over the adjacent mountains,
they say they are loving the cool climate, a
sentiment echoed also by the Qatari contingent.
* *
* *
*
 No prizes on hand, but the accolade for the
tallest competitor in this year's BEC is Wim van
der Veen of the Netherlands. This lofty leftie
is at least two meters tall.
Wim,40 in four month's time, who works part-time
for TNT, lives in the tiny village of
Schoningshdorf, just a couple of kilometers over
the border into Germany. "There are more
cows than people there, " he joked.
He will once more be among the 16 all-star
line-up for the World Tenpin Masters in
Barnsley, England, April 21-23, playing in the
televised two-game total pinfall knock-out.
(Pic: Martina Jakobi)
Team Singapore must have taken a fancy to Europe,
despite the chilly weather at this time of the
year. Or perhaps they thought that this part of
Greece was semi-tropical?
Anyway, the tiny nation was represented with a
team at the Brunswick Aalborg International in
Aalborg, Denmark last May and the girls returned
for the WTBA Women's World Championships at the
same center later in the year.
They are back in Europe with their first visit to
Greece, very intent on pillaging the Tournament
prize monies.
Pictured, left to right: Remy Ong, Shaun Ng, Alice
Tay, Jennifer Tan, David Wong and Sam Goh.
(Pic: Martina Jakobi)
Claims of a truly superb lane condition from the
Brunswick Authority 22 Lane conditioning machine
here at the Strike Bowling Club have turned out to
be correct as the tournament's first perfect game
was rolled Wednesday evening by Yousef Al Jaber of
Doha, Qatar (pictured). The 25-year-old university
student is mightily pleased as this is his
career-first 300 game. Yousef holds a 210-plus
average back home in Qatar.
Despite the cold, damp and overcast weather here
in Thessaloniki, the bowlers from Qatar are
enjoying the cool climate. "We like it, it's nice
and cool," was the surprising remark from Qatari
ace Ahmed Shaheen.
(Pic: Martina Jakobi)
Two hands are better than one! Well, that's the
case at the Strike Bowling Club this evening as
Osku Palermaa of Finland (pictured, left) and
Aussie Jason Belmonte (right) top the leader
board, first and second respectively.
 Both
use a two-handed delivery, a style they have used
all their lives, starting out on the lanes at very
tender ages and staying with that delivery through
all these years. Both bowlers are 22 years of age,
Jason just four months the senior.
Osku, a director of a newly-formed cleaning
company lives in Espoo, just outside Helsinki and
holds a 222 average, competing with the Patteri
Club in Helsinki and also with the famed Pergamon
club in Sweden. Tonight was his first entry in
this year's BEC, so he's pleased to be top of the
pile as over his previous two years he only just
made the top 25.
Jason, from Orange, close to Sydney in Australia.
"Well, it's three and a half hours from the
capital, but we call that close," he said, with a
broad smile, was the 2004 World Bowling Writers
International Bowler of the Year. Despite having
such a long way to go home to lunch, he is a
regular competitor on both the European and Asian
Tours.
(Pic: Keith Hale)
A very interested party in the unique Brunswick
Authority lane conditioning machine is Or Aviram
of Israel. Perhaps better known as an
international player than a very experienced
lane technician, Or spent a considerable amount of
time with Brunswick's tech man, Dave DiRito,
learning the comprehensive microprocessor
programming and the availability of so many
tailored patterns that
can be applied to the lanes.
"This machine is a great advance in lane cleaning
and conditioning," Or commented. "Lane
conditioning has developed a lot over recent years
but I think it still has a long way to go. The
Authority 22 is a major step in the right
direction. I think it will also be very good for
setting up varying patterns for practise.
"I would like to see a model with an entry-level
price. In Israel we only have one center with 24
lanes, the rest are much smaller, so a machine of
this magnitude would be difficult to finance.
"It will be very interesting to see how the
machine will develop over the coming year."
Pic: Or Aviram (left) getting up to date
information from Dave DiRito of Brunswick (pic:
Keith Hale) Genial Brunswick Euro Challenge
host Bill Hartofillis (pictured), managing
director of the Strike Bowling chain, is truly
pleased with the progress of the tournament, now
in its third year. "I think that the BEC has
really raised the standard of the European Bowling
Tour," stated Bill. " I now see other tournaments
copying us by giving a much better service to the
bowler and, more importantly, value for money.
"With a field embracing 27 nations and currently
406 individual entries, we are improving each
year. We could have attracted over 600 bowlers by
having so many more Greek players, but we have to
reserve the Friday and Saturday squads for the
international players and re-entries. Our total
including re-entries this year should be around
980, well within our target. We did have more
cancellations than we like, so I think the ETBF
rules for this should be more strict.
"Although it is up to Brunswick to decide the
venue of the host center each year, I believe that
Thessaloniki is the right city for the event. We
have a great bowling center, airport and hotels
all close together and our Greek hospitality is
famed world-wide. I'm also working on some
vacation packages for next year so as to make the
visit more enjoyable."
Bill's dynamic energy spreads through six bowling
centers in Greece and three in the Balkans. There
will be one more center opening near Athens later
this year and a 32-laner in the Greek capital in
2007. His expertise was recognized when he won the
Bowlers Journal International's 2005 International
Proprietor of the Year Award.
(Pic: Keith Hale)
Go to any of the major bowling countries in the
world, ask around the players and spectators for
the name of their favorite international player
and the odds are that the majority of votes will
be for Tim Mack
of the United States. Tim has won major
tournaments on all continents and was a member of
Team USA before becoming a member of the
Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). He enjoyed
a wave of success spanning many years but that all
came to a shuddering halt last year with
major shoulder surgery which involved, among other
things, the removal of about four centimeters of
bone from the socket.
"I had the surgery on May 13, Friday the
thirteenth," Tim remarked. "Then there was a
follow-up
operation in August. I didn't bowl until I
captained the American team in the Weber Cup
against Europe in England in November."
Local opinion is that Tim should not have played
that soon, but using a very light ball he survived
around seven games in the one-game format.
"I worked with doctors and other experts on the
best way to exercise and work on the mechanics of
my swing to find out what works the best.
"I last bowled seriously here in last year's BEC,"
Tim added. "Brunswick and Bill Hartofillis do a
great job here. This tournament is really well run
and that's why I'm here. I'm slowly beginning my
comeback using a 13 pound bowling ball and am once
again enjoying the competitive environment."
Congratulations are also in order as Tim married
Brenda in Las Vegas on July 2 last year.
(Lower pic: Tim Mack's backswing is a lot lower
than it used to be. Pics: Keith Hale)
Asked this morning whether he felt confident
to successfully defend his 2005 Brunswick Euro
 Challenge
title, Jens Nickel (pictured) replied: "No way. I
haven't been bowling very much, maybe eight
tournaments through the year, so my game is not
that good."
Suddenly switch to Thursday night and, lo and
behold, it is the name of Nickel that sits atop
the leader board, not by a narrow margin, but with
the massive score of 1,505.
The German bowling proprietor from Bremen, now 41,
denied being negative about his chances. "Maybe
you thought I wasn't positive about defending my
title, I'm not, but I am positive about my
bowling. The lanes changed considerably for me
over the six games tonight and I was able to make
the correct adjustments and I found the condition
was easy for me, not maybe for other players.
"This is a fantastic tournament, perhaps the best
on the European Tour," Jens added. "and one other
thing, the audience was absolutely great."
(Pic: Keith Hale)
The bowling ball sweeping the market and the
highlight of the Brunswick Euro Challenge is the
Scorchin' Inferno. Although the earlier shipment
was delayed, there are now a couple of hundred
 in
the Strike Bowling Club pro shop and the two ball
drilling machines are working flat out to cope
with the demand for this highscoring weapon, the
high-tech drillers working until the wee small
hours.
The Scorchin' Inferno is an upgrade of the popular
Ultimate Inferno. The two color solid, sanded
reactive coverstock combination has been one of
the most popular in the industry. The Scorchin'
Inferno uses this configuration with an upgraded
version of Activator coverstock called
ActivatorMAX.
ActivatorMAX is the latest development in
Activator coverstock technology. It preserves the
clean reaction through the heads that Inferno are
known for while incre asing
the mid-lane and back-end hooking action in
heavier volumes of oil.
Extensive on-lane testing places the best RG
match-up for ActivatorMAX at a slightly higher
value than that used for the Ultimate Inferno. For
maximum forgiveness and versatility the Scorchin'
uses a higher Average-RG, and lower differential
version of the Ultimate Inferno core.
For the high technical (very) minded, the Hook
Potential comes out at 160; Length 50; Breakpoint
Shape 70; Flare Potential 0.042 and RG-Average
3.4.
Full details of ball specifications and
availability are available from the pro shop
downstairs. The chef de partie of the
operation is none other than the highly
experienced pro shop operator and international
coach Mario Joseph (pictured), taking time out
from his duties in Saudi Arabia to run the shop
here in Thessaloniki, assisted by Dimitris
Karetsos of Thessaloniki and Athansios Basis from
Athens. The shop is staffed with a team of
six people, so dedicated and professional service
is assured..
(Pics: Keith Hale)
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For further information, contact Keith Hale:
keithhale679@aol.com
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