Osku Palermaa, from Espoo, Finland, made the stepladder final of the PBA tournament in the United States last weekend and has

flown back across the Atlantic on the fourth stage of a journey that has taken in Dubai, Catalonia, The United States and now France.

The journeyings have certainly not sapped either his energy or his abundant enthusiam for his bowling and the lithe Finn with the unique two-handed delivery expertly handled the Plaza Bowling lanes at noon on Friday by totaling a nice series taking him into the elite 1500 club with 1532, booking third place in the overall standings.

There is no sign of the groups missing out on 1400 series. The dawn raiders in the 08:00 squad this morning had six with the seemingly unstoppable Adran Ang from Malaysia topping the squad with 1480; PBA pro bowler from Finland, Mika Koivunieme (1459); Germany's Stefan Wendlandt (1450); Zulmazran Zulkifli, Malaysia (1445); Thomas Larsen, Denmark, last week's Catalonia Open champion (1413) and Alex Cavagnaro, United States (1402).

Those bowling alongside Palermaa fares not so well. Just three, other than the man himself broke 1400: Tony Ranta, finland (1472); Tore Torgersen, Norway (1455) and Patricia Luoto, Germany (1401).

At the time of writing, 1400s go down to 34th place in the overall standings. The current cut to 52 is 1377, just butting up to a 230 average. The elite 16 have a cut of 1445.

for full standings, see www.brunswickeurochallenge.com.