Maltese bowling youths excel at the IBF U21 World Championships

Matthew Magro named Sportsman of the Tournament

For the U-21 IBF World Championships 2022, taking place at Helsingborg, Sweden, the Malta Bowling Association (MBA) sent four male youths to compete internationally and together they made deep progression against top competition.

Team Malta consisted of Kayden Laganà (14), Matthew Magro (20), Miguel Xuereb (20), and Nicholas Muscat (17).

For each category, singles, doubles, and team, athletes had to play a block of games for qualifying, six games for singles and doubles and ten games for the team event. These were held to decide who from the many athletes should play in the final stages.

Despite strong performances in the singles and doubles, our youths managed to make the qualifying cut onto the final stages for the team event, qualifying in ninth place within the top 16 averaging 214.30 per game.

The top 16 were then divided into two groups of eight. Match-play ensued among all teams within their respective groups to select the final four teams.

Kayden Laganà was closest among the Maltese to making the cut for the singles event, though he was five pins short.

The Maltese youths then won three of the seven direct encounters though this was not enough to qualify within the top two teams of the group, and thus, our youths were knocked out of the tournament.

During these direct encounters, Team Malta managed to defeat England, Korea, and the home-crowd favourites Sweden, costing them a medal in the process.

These three nations all qualified within the top 5 of the category, though their defeats to Malta were costly as none of them qualified for the semi-finals.

During the awards ceremony, Malta’s Matthew Magro was honoured by being voted as the Sportsman of the Tournament for his display during the coveted U21 World Championships.

He was given this award for the honourable character and attitude he displayed during these games.