On Thursday, at the Fiesta Bowling Center in Incheon, Korea, 140 youth bowlers competed in the qualification round of the 2024 World Youth Championships in the Boys' Singles event.
Sixteen players advanced to the match-play round after six qualification games.
Czech bowler Lukáš Jelínek was nothing short of phenomenal, leading the pack with an impressive total of 1540 pinfall (256.7 avg.). A 300 in the very last game from Sweden’s Carl Eklund put him in second place with 1492 total (248.7 avg.). Nasser Alkandari of Kuwait, who was in the lead after the first two squads, finished in third with 1447 total (241.2 avg.). Korea's Junghun Bae took fourth with 1445 total (240.8 avg.), while Germany's Paul Purps rounded out the top five with 1432 pins (238.7 avg.).
Along with Jelínek, Eklund, and Purps, four other Europeans advanced to the match-play round of the Boys' Singles. Max Lorenz of Germany scored 1421 pins (236.8 avg.) to finish in sixth place. Ísak Birkir Sævarsson of Iceland finished in ninth with 1390 total (231.7 avg.), Kenneth Ramos from the Netherlands ended in tenth with 1385 pins (230.8 avg.), while Hinrik Oli Gunnarsson of Iceland finished fifteenth with 1356 total (226 avg.).
In the Matchplay Rounds, the qualifiers will be divided into two groups of eight. They will engage in seven round-robin matches, where each win earns 3 points, and a draw nets 1 point. The intense competition will culminate in the top two players from each group advancing to the semi-finals, based on their accumulated points.
Full standings can be found here.
