Finnish, US bowlers win 40th AMF Bowling World Cup

Kai Virtanen of Finland and Shannon Pluhowsky of the United States won the men's and women's titles in the 40th AMF Bowling World Cup championships here on Sunday.

Virtanen went into the final after defeating top-seeded Jason Belmonte of Australia and No. 5 seed Yahav Rabin of Israel to facesecond seed Norway's Petter Hansen.

They came to a draw after the first two games. However, a disastrous 2-8-10 split and the failure to convert it in the 10th frame of the final game deprived Hansen of the chance to win.

Virtanen, the 35-year-old computer engineer, quit internationalbowling for five years but started training and competing again this past spring.

Virtanen not only won a successful comeback for himself, but also brought the title back to Finland after a one-year absence when a Philippine bowler gained the champion of 2003.

In the women's division, Pluhowsky became the third woman ever to win the title twice by dethroning defending champion Kerrie Ryan-Ciach of Canada with 2 to 0. It is the second time they met in the World Cup final after Ryan-Ciach won the game last year.

The 22-year-old US national amateur champion admitted that the loss last year was a driving force for this season.

Pluhowsky's victory gave the United States its 13th World Cup title, the most among all the participating countries and regions in the past 40 years, with 7 men and 6 women having been the champions.

Unlucky Ryan-Ciach could have become the second person in WorldCup history to win back-to-back titles.

The AMF World Cup is the world's largest annual international sports championship in terms of number of participating countries and regions. 166 bowlers from a record 95 teams competed in this year's AMF World Cup.

It is the second time for Singapore to host the AMF Bowling World Cup in 31 years.

Source: Xinhua