ARLINGTON, Texas – The 2017 World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, will kick off Thursday with a formal opening ceremony, and bowling will be among the first sports to get underway when competition starts Friday.

Team USA’s four-member team is comprised of Kelly Kulick of Union, New Jersey, Danielle McEwan of Stony Point, New York, Tommy Jones of Simpsonville, South Carolina, and Marshall Kent of Yakima, Washington.

Kent was a late replacement for Team USA rookie Jakob Butturff of Tempe, Arizona. Butturff was selected to compete in Poland but had to withdraw last week because of a fractured finger.

The four-day bowling competition will be held at Sky Bowling, with women’s singles kicking off on Friday. Men’s singles take place Saturday, followed by women’s doubles on Sunday and men’s doubles on Monday.

Several stars from the Professional Bowlers Association and Professional Women’s Bowling Association are among the athletes scheduled to compete, including are Canada’s Francois Lavoie and Dan MacLelland, Colombia’s Clara Guerrero and Rocio Restrepo, Denmark’s Thomas Larsen, Finland’s Osku Palermaa, Germany’s Birgit Poppler, Poland’s Daria Pajak and Singapore’s Bernice Lim.

The World Games, which has been held every four years since 1981, is an international multi-sport event for sports, disciplines or events within a sport, that are not contested in the Olympic Games.

Organized and governed by the International World Games Association (IWGA), under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the event will showcase 31 sports and approximately 3,500 athletes and officials from more than 100 countries over 11 days of competition.

Kulick teamed with Mike Fagan to earn the first gold medal for the United States at the 2013 event in Cali, Colombia. Kulick also won silver in singles at the event. Before the duo won the mixed doubles gold in 2013, the United States had won just five World Games medals – two silver and three bronze – in eight appearances.

Each of bowling's three zones – American, Asian and European – will send five countries, with the host nation rounding out the field at 16 countries. Joining the United States from the Pan American Bowling Confederation (PABCON) are Canada, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

Team USA, Colombia and Venezuela qualified at the PABCON Champion of Champions in April 2016, while Canada and Mexico qualified during the PABCON Adult Championships in September 2016.

Visit TheWorldGames.org for more information on the World Games.