Observations From the 2026 European Youth Championships

I recently returned from the 2026 European Youth Championships, hosted by the Deutsche Bowling Union in Berlin, Germany, where I was a coach for Team England. This event is always exciting for bowlers, coaches, parents, and supporters alike. The atmosphere created is unlike any other tournament. Some of Europe’s finest bowlers have come through this championship, such as Jesper Svennson, Thomas Larsen, Verity Crawley, Diana Zavjalova, and Daria Pajak.

In this article, I will briefly review this year’s championship before delving into the recent trends, digging through a bit of data, and establishing where bowling amongst Europe’s elite youth bowlers is currently at and where it might be going.

Format

The championship went to its current format, consisting of teams of four bowlers, in 2009. Before this, countries sent teams of six. As usual in championships, there are boys and girls categories. Each bowler competes in three events, which are (in playing order) Singles, Doubles, and Team. In each event, every bowler bowls six qualifying games, bowling on lanes within their own category, with the top four scores advancing to the medal rounds. The medal rounds are played over one game of the respective event. The semifinal round sees first versus fourth and second versus third, as determined by the qualifying standings. The losers of those matches both receive a bronze medal, while the winners advance to the final to play for gold and silver.

As well as these events, there is also an All Events competition which awards gold, silver, and bronze medals to the bowlers who have the highest 18-game cumulative score from their Singles, Doubles, and Team qualification blocks. To finish, there is a knockout competition that the top 16 bowlers from the All Events qualify for, known as the Masters, which is played on the last day of competition. Any ball from the USBC-approved ball list is eligible to be used in this tournament, but this rule is changing to the 78D rule for the 2027 event.

The tournament used to have a slightly different structure between 2009 and 2023. The top 24 from the All Events qualified for the Masters, and a slightly different knockout format was subsequently used. There was only one oil pattern in use, which both boys and girls bowled on, and the order of events was Doubles, Team, Singles. Separate patterns for the boys and girls divisions were introduced starting in 2024.

2026 summary

Before we delve back into the history books and do some statistical analysis on the scores since 2009, I will first review the 2026 event. Simply put, there was some incredible bowling on display. I don’t think the adult national teams ...