European Bowling Tour

The European Bowling Tour (EBT) is one of three tenpin bowling tours (Europe, Americas, Asia) that form part of the ranking system of the World Tenpin Bowling Association (WTBA).

The tour is run by the European Tenpin Bowling Federation, and in 2008 the tour consists of 18 tournaments.

In all the tournaments, men and women compete alongside each other, with women receiving a handicap per game. In these tournaments there is only one prize fund (not split for men & women), however some tournaments offer additional bonuses for the highest placed woman, which is often in addition to any of the regular prize money.

Ranking Points are awarded in each stop, to the top 50 men, and the top 50 women. Points are doubled for ‘major’ stops on the tour, and triple points for the one 'premier' stop, (a new addition for the 2008 tour) the Ankara Open.

History

During the 1990’s, there had been several attempts to develop Ten-pin bowling tours in Europe but these were usually limited to one country (The Danish Masters Tour and the German Golden Bowling Ball Tour). It wasn’t until 2000 that the European Bowling Tour was launched initially holding 9 tournaments in 8 countries. It had expanded to 12 tournaments by 2003, 17 tournaments in 2004, and now 18 tournaments in both 2007 and 2008, in 14 different countries. The 2007 tour paid out over 1.2 million Euros in prize money.

Today

In 2007, Osku Palermaa (Finland), and Kirsten Penny (England) were the EBT ranking champions. In both cases they won the respective titles for the first time. They will be defending their titles in 2008.

The 16 highest ranked men and the 16 highest ranked women in the EBT 2007 have qualified for the inaugural EBT Masters. In addition the Top 8 ranked Men and Women have qualifed for the World Ranking Masters 2008.

The format varies from tournament to tournament, but generally most tournaments on the EBT take the form of 6 games re-entry qualification, with the top 50-60 bowlers (depending on the tournament) bowling a further set of games (most commonly 4), before a final cut to either single elimination matchplay or stepladder finals.

The 2008 Tour

At an ETBF Presidium meeting, held on 5 July 2008 in Vienna - Austria, the composition of the European Bowling Tour 2008 was decided.

The EBT 2008 will consist of 18 tournaments, of which 6 have been granted the EBT Challenger status, 11 have been granted the EBT Major status (double ranking points) and 1, The Ankara Open (stop 13) has been granted the new Premier status, which will offer triple ranking points. The 18 tournaments will be conducted in 14 different countries. Detailed information of each stop is available at www.etbf.dk.

Of the 18 tournaments in the EBT 2007, the organizers of Husqvarna International (Sweden), Malta Open and Norwegian Open have decided not to re-apply for adoption in the EBT 2008, while a similar number of new tournaments (three) are adopted in the EBT 2008, namely the 2nd Maribor Open Strike Tournament (Slovenia), Lahti Open (Finland) and the 7th Qatar International Open Bowling Tournament 2008.

It is the first time a tournament from Slovenia has been adopted, it is the first time two tournaments from Finland have been adopted and it is indeed the first time a tournament from Qatar has been adopted. The adoption of the tournament from Qatar introduces a new era of the European Bowling Tour, since it is the first time we are going outside the traditional European area for a tournament adoption.

The possibility to adopt one or more high class tournaments from outside Europe were published by the introduction of the EBT 2008 Rules on 30 October 2006 and we are very proud and satisfied, already from the first possible year, to be able to present the tournament in Qatar as the first non European tournament in the tour - a tournament which also will be the richest ever in the history of the EBT, since a tremendous prize pool of not less than €120.000 is offered by the organizer.

The total prize pool (including tour prize money) for the 18 tournaments in the EBT 2007 will be €1.000.000, while the total prize pool for the 18 tournaments in the EBT 2008 will be €1.175.000. This very visible improvement does indeed also influence the average prize pool per tournament, which increases from €52.000 in 2007 to €62.000 in 2008.

The top 16 women and the top 16 men after the 18 stops in the EBT 2008 will qualify for the EBT Masters 2009, while the top 8 women and the top 8 men in addition will qualify for the World Ranking Masters 2009.

The EBT 2008 is - as always - open for all bowlers in the World and all bowlers can be awarded points, no matter their nationality.

Kegel is, for the fourth consecutive year, appointed as the official lane maintenance partner for ETBF, meaning that Kegel staff will be at the sites and Kegel equipment will be in use in a number of stops throughout the 2008 season.

The 2008 Tour Schedule, and Winners of each stop

Ranking points awarded

The following table details the number of ranking points awarded at each stop, in ‘Premier’, ‘Major’ and ‘Challenger’ tour stops.
Points are awarded for the top 50 men and top 50 women in each stop.

EBT Masters

The EBT Masters will begin in 2008, and will be a single tournament, with the top 16 men and top 16 women in the final standings of the EBT 2007 qualifying.

The 1st EBT Masters will be bowled in Rollhouse Bowling Centre in Ankara, Turkey in the days following the conclusion of the Ankara Open on Sunday 21 September 2008. The 1st EBT Masters will be played over three days, which is Monday-Wednesday 22-24 September 2008 and departure on Thursday 25 September 2008.

The format of the 1st EBT Masters is 3 qualification squads of 8 games each (one squad at short oil, one squad at long oil and one squad at mixed oil) followed by a Top 8 Elimination in best of three games matches, until the 1st EBT Men Masters and the 1st EBT Women Masters is found.

A minimum prize pool of 40.000 € will be provided (20.000 € for each gender) and no player taking part will win less than 500 €.

In addition to the top 8 ranked bowlers listed above, the following bowlers (ranked 9-16) have qualified to compete in Ankara.
MEN:- Kimmo Lehtonen (Finland), Nikolay Ovchinnikov (Latvia), Jouni Helminen (Finland), Laonidas Maragos (Greece), Dennis Eklund (Sweden), Marcus Berndt (Sweden), Jean Marc Lebon (Belgium) and Jesper Agerbo (Denmark) with the following 4 bowlers on the reserve list:- Wu Siu Hong, (Hong Kong), Petteri Salonen (Finland), Jimmy Dan Mortensen, (Denmark) and Peter Smits (Netherlands).
WOMEN:- Kamilla Kjeldsen, (Denmark), Priscilla Maaswinkel (Netherlands), Zara Glover (England), Isabelle Saldjian (France), Krista Pöllänen (Finland, Lotte Houbo Pedersen (Denmark, Piritta Kantola (Finland) and Ivonne Gross (Austria) with the following 4 bowlers on the reserve list:- Nina Flack (Sweden), Diana Zavjalova (Latvia), Reija Lundén (Finland) and Daniëlle van der Meer (Netherlands)

Miscellaneous

Kegel [http://www.kegel.net/] is the official Lane Maintenance Partner of the ETBF.

Article 5 of the WTBA Constitution defines the European Tenpin Bowling Federation as follows: 'It shall embrace all FIQ national federations with tenpins on the Continent of Europe, North Africa, British Isles and the islands of the North Atlantic.' The European Tenpin Bowling Federation currently consists of 48 member federations. [http://www.wtba.ws/index.php?topic=organization&sub=3]

External links

* [http://www.etbf.dk/ Official European Tenpin Bowling Federation website]
* [http://www.bowlingdigital.com Bowlingdigital.com, Tenpin news website]
* [http://www.talktenpin.co.uk/cms/index.php Talktenpin.co.uk, Tenpin news website]
* [http://www.bowlinglinks.de Bowlinglinks all over the World, sorted by categories]