STANDINGS AFTER SQUAD 7 - FRIDAY MAY 25
Just 21 brave souls contested the 09:00
squad Friday and, without being unkind
to those brave enough to hit the early hours,
none of the so-called 'big guns' were amongst
that number.
A 254 opener from Denmark's Claus Carlsen showed
that the strikes were there to be hunted down,
and that was followed by a 252 from Mikko
Masalin of Finland.
Game 2 and it is the Greek flag at the top if
the mast as Leonidas Maragkos totalled 472 and
local player Mark Skriver Nielsen slotted into
second place on 453.
With just three bowlers to a pair of lanes the
pace is pretty quick and three games gone in
just 70 minutes. The leader at the halfway stage
is once again Leonidas Maragkos, the only score
over 700 with 705, and hot on his heels is Lars
Linder of Denmark on 692, so there is no real
challenge to the 1514 set a couple o f days ago
by Magnus Magnusson of Iceland.
The four game total has a new front runner with
Lotte Houbo Pedersen of Denmark (pictured) ousting Leonidas
from first place to second, 905 to 890. At this
stage there are just nine players averaging over
200.
Lotte kept her pole position through game five
with a total of 1149 and her closest challenger
for top of the squad is another Dane, Rasmus
Hyldahl on 1092. Leonidas fell back to 1066.
So,
at the end of this opening Friday squad, Lotte
held on to the lead and drop into 19th place
overall and Anders Vorberg, also from Denmark
with 1289 was second on the squad.
This squad was the fourth entry this year from
Lotte, 27, who lives in Aalborg. She holds
something of a unique record of nine entries in
the Aalborg International, a record shared with
Tim Mack of the United States. "I'm an
optimist," she declared, "and I might set a new
record this year."
The next squad, number eight, takes to the lanes
at 13:00 local time and following squads are
scheduled at 17:00 and 21:00, a long day for
those involved for the full works.
SQUAD 8
Quite a lotta international talent in this eighth
squad and leftie Paul Moor of England, who has led
the European Tour rankings for the past three
years is setting the pace with 246, just a
squeaker ahead of Finland's Kimmo Lehtonen,
another leftie, on 244. Paul is on his first
entry, having just arrived from the English
shores, but Kimmo bowled last night alongside PBA
champion Mika Koivuniemi and hopes to improve on
his current 42nd place, right on the cut.
Others under the spotlight include newly-crowned
World Ranking Masters champion Stuart Williams
from England; Finland's Toni Laine, who recently
hit 1707 over six games in a Finnish tournament
and above mentioned Lotte, making her fifth entry
this year.
 Paul
Moor's 257 in his second game puts him on course
for the 1500 barrier. He now has 503 points in the
bank and needs another 1012 to take the lead off
Magnusson. Second placed right now is Johnny
Josefsson from Sweden on 480. Well, Paul
(pictured) is still on his hot streak, now with a
258 to bring his three-game score up to 761.
double that for six games and it will take the
lead, but he has to carry that standard over a
further three pairs of lanes. It's an English
double right now as a fine 290 from Stuart
Williams brings him into second place with 740 and
third is Johnny Josefsson with 728. Things are
getting very interesting now as game four comes to
a close. Paul's hot streak continues and his
account grows in credit. Now a 279 brings the
balance to 1040 and a clear lead over second
placed Williams' 946 and continuing well on course
for a new top score. Two open frames in game
five did not look too good for Paul in game five
but strings of strikes in between brought him a
236 and a 1276 total pinfall, so still on course
for the lead if he can hit 239 in the final game
for 1515. He now moves over to lanes one and two
with that aim in mind. Williams still leads the
'also rans' with 1188, but the crowd is now well
behind Mr Moor. And the result is ..............
Magnusson is still the leader. Paul had a 236 in
the last game, so falls two pins short of the
Icelandic's 1514. A brave attempt but still a
great score as anything over 1500 is worthy of
praise. SQUAD 9:
Who would have thought that two seasoned
international tenpin travellers as Zara Glover and
Kirsten Penny would miss a squad because, as they
said: "We forget to change our watches to Danish
time"? But that's evidently what they did, so were
not present when the 17:00 squad took to the lanes
this evening. with luck, they will be here for the
21:00 squad, unless they get waylaid by the Aalborg carnival which is in full swing this
weekend. The top five scores at the end of game
one are all from the Finnish contingent, topped by
Pasi Uotila on 259 and followed by the two-hander
Osku Palermaa with 256 so, at the moment, we have
two players on course for 1500-plus. Pasi
dropped down to a second place tie with Mie Agerbo
of Denmark after the second game, the score 469.
But the leader is now Osku Palermaa on 480, but
all some way off the pace required to set a new
total to beat. Four games down now, Osku
Palermaa (pictured) back on top with 984 and maybe a slim
chance of getting into
 the high 1400s. Petteri
Salonen, a fellow Finn lies second on 929 and,
just for the ladies, French champion Isabelle
Saldjian is now third with 912. After five
games Osku still leads on 1176 and fellow Finn
Jaria Ratia jumps to second with 1129. Or Aviram
of Israel gets a mention as third place on 1113.
Osku can now claim that he is in his rightful
place - at the top of the leader board. But that
top place is just for the squad, not for the
tournament. for the overall scores, his
finishing 1412 brought him up to tenth place, a
good position for the finals if he can stay
there.
Osku's tussle with Petteri Salonen ended with
the foe on just 1365 and Finnish Federation
president Jouni Helminen third on 1326.
 Focus
on the final squad of hardy souls was on Kirsten
Penny from England, (pictured) the current EBT
rankings leader. She did not disappoint the
spectators, starting with 234 and 233 and
finishing with a six-game total of 1306. Add her
48 point ladies' bonus and 1354 slots her into
20th place overall.
Now the cut is 1317, a little higher than last
year's 1292 and with four squads yet to take to
the lanes, that figure could maybe increase to
the high 20s or maybe the low 30s. STANDINGS AFTER SQUAD
10: | 
BRUNSWICK
AALBORG INTERNATIONAL